


Hey Spacejerk

by Hecallsmehischild



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Gen, Mental Abuse, Non Consensual Surgery, penpal fic, this author loves the frenemies to best friends trope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-08 03:43:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 29,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14685744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecallsmehischild/pseuds/Hecallsmehischild
Summary: Hey Spacejerk. Good job burning down my house. Were you hoping I'd have to move? Congratulations. But that's not going to stop me from spending my every living breathing second monitoring you. And sending you mail through a system you're too dumb to figure out. Enjoy blowing your voice out screaming. -Dib





	1. Coughed on it

Hey Spacejerk,

 You’d better not be raining acid on the city. It’s been one day (okay, well, probably three or four by the time you get this. Though that’s if mail delivery bothers to intuit “Big Glowy Green House on Rampant Ave” instead of laughing and sending it back to me. Seriously, you’ve been here seven years and you couldn’t get a street number? Register as a citizen so you could properly infiltrate? What kind of alien invader is here for seven years and can’t even figure that much out?)

 As I was saying, it’s been one (or four) days since I got here. Just because I’m three states away don’t think I’m not watching your every move. I have spycams on my spycams and they are planted in every square inch of your base. Yeah. Betcha didn’t know about those. I coughed on them too. Good luck getting them out without exploding from human germs.

 You’re probably asking yourself why I’m writing you a paper letter instead of emailing you. Well, first, having hacked into your system a couple of times I’m pretty sure you don’t have an email. Second, I’m pretty sure a primitive paper communication will annoy you. Third, I bet you don’t even know how to send one back. Which will annoy you even more.

 Have fun figuring that out, Spacejerk. I’m watching you.

 --Dib

 P.S. I coughed on this letter, too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly? I’m not totally sure where I’m going with this. I have some stuff I need to process in writing. The last time I set out to intentionally process something out through Fanfiction with only a scrap of an idea, I ended up with Ayam. Main fic is Laughter Lines right now, but this is a side fic to help me process some things.


	2. Memefoolery

Hey Spacejerk,

You're as predictable as a bad genie. And no, that has nothing to do with genomes or pants. Did you just run screaming out of your base, grab the first human you came across, and demand where you could get huge quantities of acid?

I mean, that's what I have to assume happened when I check the news and see the whole city is on a bad drug trip. Do you seriously not know the difference between acid and Acid? You probably missed the sly grin and wink. Nobody's melting, Zim. They'll just wake up tomorrow and talk about their freaky nightmares.

I mean, how seriously do you take what I say, here? Let's see if you can decode the secret meanings of the following statements. I'm so confident you don't understand the sophisticated language of memes that I've hidden the key to Earth's destruction in these sentences:

All your base are belong to me.

Danger noodle do you a heckin' chomp.

Can haz cheeseburger?

U mad, bro?

Mods are asleep, post ponies!

And… well crap. Can't think of a lot more off the top of my head. It would be fun to see your head explode when you try and figure these out, though. I bet you can't.

Serves you right for setting my house on fire.

-Dib


	3. Real Science

Hey Spacejerk,

Have to admit, I was surprised the city stayed as normal as it usually gets this week. Then again, I guess you were pretty busy trying to figure out my world-ending clues. I never did find out if Irkens need sleep, but even I can tell you look like hell on the spycams.

Oh yeah, I'm still watching. You did a good job purging most of them, but you missed a few. Bet you can't figure out where.

It's funny how I don't know whether Irkens need sleep but I know every last button you have and how to push them. I can even say things just like that in these letters that any human would understand in an instant, but you take the wrong meaning from. And you take it with such precision as to be somewhat predictable. I'm laughing at you, Zim.

Three weeks, now. Most of the boxes are unpacked. Gaz enrolled in the local Hi-Skool to finish out senior year. Me, I'm not sure what to do, yet. Dad wants me to start at Colledge University and finally learn Real Science. Like I don't understand Real Science already. Does Real Science talk about why our new house has a little ghost trapped in the house walls that tells sad stories at night? Does Real Science explain how Bigfoot's feet got to be so huge? Does Real Science tell me why I was cursed with a nemesis from outer space?

No, no, and no.

I think Real Science is the trophy wife my Dad brought home and always wanted us to call Mom, and it's just not going to happen. Mostly because he's never home, anyway.

Heh, good luck figuring all that out. I'll give you a hint: Try comprehending what a metaphor is, then read again. But I still think you'll fail. Pretty sure, from snippets you've dropped over the years, that Irkens don't have families.

-Dib


	4. Yelling at Clouds

Hey Spacejerk,

Have you ever seen the meme "Old man yells at cloud"? Probably not. You should look it up. And I mean "research it on the human internet." Because it looked an awful lot like what I saw on a news report the other day. Except it was a little closer to "Crazy alien screams at mailbox."

Of course the news reporter said you were just a deranged little boy, but what do they know.

Just for the record? Yelling at the mailbox isn't how this communication system works. Unless you were actually trying to get a news crew down there to ridicule you. In which case, it works great. How long were you screaming at it, anyway?

That's actually the most activity I've seen out of you in days. You haven't been down in your base very much, from what I see on the cams. Do you have some new scheme going?

Screw it. Doesn't matter anyway, I'm practically on house arrest unless I want to go to Colledge University. It's your fault. He thinks I did it, you know. None of this would have happened if you didn't…

Whatever. Go gargle water. It'll improve your voice.

-Dib

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in supporting my writing, consider checking out my Patreon!


	5. Everything's Wetter

Hey Spacejerk,

Got away from Dad's HomeDrone™ for a bit. I'm sure it'll find me soon enough, but I get a few minutes out of prison. Excuse me, I meant a few minutes out of the house. Guess I should thank you for years of chase-capades all over the city. If I had even a drop of interest, I might qualify as a halfway decent runner. Heck. Maybe I should take up martial arts, see what level I land at with my reflexes. I still hit the deck every time the bug zapper catches something because I half expect you to come bursting through a wall to trumpet about your latest plan.

Guess your shrieking did you some good, once you moved your rant into the house. You shot the audio receptors on my last spycam to hell, great job. I can still see you, though. Haven't seen anything indicative of a master plan for weeks, unless your plan is to outwait the battery life of my cam. Don't bother, it's one of Dad's old prototype energy packs. That cam will be transmitting long after I'm dead.

I haven't gotten to interact with people much, yet. Probably for the best. It's just so weird here. The scenery is so different. There's a lot of houses, still, but it's so much greener. You could probably blend right into the local scenery if you got rid of that stupid red dress. You'd hate it here, though. It gets this green because the air holds moisture like you wouldn't believe. I wonder, actually, if climate this humid might kill you. Not like there's no water in the city air, but you really take for granted how dry that air is until you move to a place where walking outside is like faceplanting into a warm, wet towel.

And don't get me started on the weekly downpours. You thought our little city rainstorms were bad, here thunder sounds like it's practically in the room with you. The whole sky lights up and the raindrops come down with a hefty smack. I've no doubt a short walk in one of our storms would peel you down to the bone in five minutes.

And then there's the sounds. I don't hear cars rushing by anymore. I don't hear police sirens or ambulances wailing. In the morning I hear birds, loud and close, chasing through the yard. In the evening I hear cicadas (that's a type of insect) screaming and I wonder what your reaction would be to such an eerie sound without knowing what it is. Where I'm sitting now, on the bank of a creek, I see a heron (a kind of long-legged bird) stalking the water. What would you do if you were here? Shoot it? Or try to catch it for your experiments?

Ah. There's a sound I'm familiar with. Looks like HomeDrone™ is on the hunt for the wayward crazed Membrane. Let's see if speed and reflexes can buy me a few more minutes of freedom.

-Dib

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your feedback so far, I'm enjoying this journey too. Please consider checking out my Patreon!


	6. Cheese Shortages

Hey Spacejerk,

What is the sound of one alien losing his mind?

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

You smell weird.

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

Improve your face: add meat.

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

Nevermind, it was just a normal cheese shortage. The cows were on strike.

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

Guess who has all the time in the world to do this?

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

Has your robot consumed all the cheese in the city? Looks like there's a shortage.

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

Wait a second, cows don't go on strike. Did you mind control them?

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

I don't know why I even bother.

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

Maybe you should try using that thing above your shoulders every now and then.

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

Seriously? Cows with picket signs. That's your best plan lately.

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK SPACEJERK

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

How many letters does it take to fill an alien's mailbox?

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

Have you ever wondered if there's a dozen Dib clones plotting your destruction at this very moment? Bet you are now.

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

I heard that if you listen to Aqua's Barbie Girl for ten hours straight, the secrets of the universe become clear.

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

The views are great, the space is great, but I'd kill to see something familiar out here.

-Dib

* * *

Hey Spacejerk,

What is the sound of one guy losing his mind?

-Dib


	7. How To

Hey Spacejerk,

You know what's worse than you blathering non-stop about how superior you are and the brilliance of your greatest plan? What's more unbearable than being held prisoner in your base, or seeing your plans actually cause massive collateral damage in spite of your incredibly moronic concept?

No sign of you on the cams. All the news is normal news, and when it isn't, it's an idea only GIR could have come up with. Cows on strike.

What are you planning, Zim? Or, are you not planning? That's not possible, though. I know you, you always have some plan.

Look, I'm sick of this. I hope you saved the envelope because I'm going to explain this system. This part you're holding and reading is the letter. You fold it to fit in another piece of paper specially crafted to hold it, called an envelope. You seal the envelope (which means you tape or glue it closed, you don't actually raid a local zoo) and then you write on the opposite side. You put the name and address of the person you want to receive the letter in the center. In the upper left corner, you write your own name and address just in case there was a mistake and the Post Office needs to know who to give it back to. In the upper right corner you put one stamp.

Before you try to make your own, it's a special kind of stamp made by the government. You have to go to the Post Office and ask for "A book of stamps." If they ask you what kind, say "Forever Stamps." I know it probably sounds dumb to you to walk up and ask for a "Book of forever stamps" but that's just what we call it all. The Forever Stamps means that even if the price of stamps goes up, these ones will still be good to mail one letter each. Forever the same price, get it? So you buy that and then you'll have enough to mail 20 letters.

So you just take ONE of these stamps and put it in the upper right corner of the envelope. Then you can either give it to the Post Office or put it in your mailbox and lift the little red flag. That signals the Postman that you have a letter you want him to deliver.

You can find my address on the envelope this letter came in. But… just in case you ripped it to shreds and can't read anything on it anymore, I did the first envelope for you. It's enclosed in this letter, and you can write your own letter and use it.

So, yeah. Tell me your dumb plan. I've been grounded. Locked in my room for two weeks so far and I'm losing my mind. If my Dad wasn't Professor Membrane himself, I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be legal. I'm an adult for Mars' sake.

-Dib


	8. Use Your Words

Hey Spacejerk,

First, a bomb is not a letter.

Second, I rent a P.O. box, which means the mail comes to a building that is not my house, and then my Dad pays some special service to go through all the mail in case of poison, drugs, or bombs.

Third, you suck. He blamed me. If I bought a bomb, I'd definitely buy it from someone more competent than you. And I wouldn't wire it up and address it to myself! How is it my Dad is the world's smartest scientist and he does not understand how humans work? Like, at all? Sometimes talking to him is just as frustrating as talking to you.

Try again, dummy. This time, use your words.

-Dib


	9. Devil's in the Details

Hey Spacejerk,

Fine. I don't need you to tell me your stupid plan. I have other ways of finding out what you're doing and all the time in the world on my hands. And if you won't talk to me about what you're up to, then I'll just talk to you about what I'm up to.

Which amounts to very little. Maybe I can bore you to death with the details.

I get limited outdoor time, now. There's a tracker on my ankle. I wish I was surprised by this. I feel like there's something screwed up about the fact I take this as par for the course with Dad. I either have to be within half a mile of the house or within twenty feet of Gaz. I think she enjoys going into the city with me just so she can try to put too much distance between us. Apparently it's funny to see your brother get pumped full of sedatives by the tracker and even funnier to leave him lying there to get picked up by Dad's security. I stopped going out with her after that happened twice.

Dad says I should be grateful. That if he wasn't the well respected world-saving scientist that he is, I'd be in jail. "No, son, there's no point investigating the fire. It's quite obvious by your proximity to the source and the ash all over you that you were the arsonist." Yeah. Like I wasn't there trying to salvage the evidence I'd been hoarding. But whatever. All I have to do is sign up for Colledge and take pre-approved classes and get my life back on Dad's track so there's another Dad when Dad is gone. If he wants that so badly, why doesn't he just turn himself into a computer? Nobody would know the difference, and those who could tell wouldn't care.

Might even be an improvement. You can hack computers. Program them to leave you alone.

I started trying to gather some evidence again, but it's rough going without my equipment. All I've got right now is some barely audible recordings from the sad ghost in my walls. Sounds perfectly clear when I'm trying to sleep, but like a cat garbled underwater on tape. Weirder than that, though, is I can never remember what she said. As soon as she finishes talking it all starts to slip away. Next time I'll try transcribing as she speaks.

There isn't much in the way of the Swollen Eyeball network out here. Dad tried to block my calls out, but I've been getting around parental controls since I was five. Still, they don't really want to hear from me since I never brought conclusive evidence of your existence.

It gets way too quiet out here. Too much time to think. I don't want to think, I want to do things.

Haven't tested what happens if I try to take the tracker off. A little afraid to, actually, but if I don't get a little actual freedom like, I don't know, an adult… I might lose it.

-Dib

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really funny thing is this is the only fic I can write today. Finger home-splinted for pain. Short chapter format ideal. Sucks it happened during a high muse point though.


	10. Say Something

Hey Spacejerk,

So, apparently trying to get the tracker off results in the SWAT team raining down on your house and another "grounding." Two weeks in solitary—that is to say, in my room. Joke's on Dad, I'm just about always in solitary and have been most of my life. You're about the only person who ever took me seriously. How sad is that?

I guess it's a little different. At least when I was a kid people talked to me about how much they hated me or were creeped out. Now there's just, nothing. Me and the ghost. I think she's sympathetic, but I'm still not totally sure what's going on because I sat down with pen and paper to write what she was saying, and by the time I was done the paper I was writing on vanished.

I'm not going to lie. I can't tell if the ghost caused that to happen or if… if I never was really writing down what she said in the first place and just thought I was.

I don't want to think about that, though. If I just thought I was writing down what she said, maybe I've just made up the ghost in my wall. If I've made her up, maybe I made you up.

Maybe that's why you're not writing back. Maybe you're not even real.

What if there aren't any ghosts or aliens? All my proof went up in smoke, how am I supposed to remind myself?

No, you sent me a bomb in the mail. That proves you're real and still out there.

Unless… I really did… and labeled it with your name..

Please write back. I need you to write back, Zim. Something. Anything.

-Dib


	11. Faustian Deals

Hey Spacejerk,

The footage from the spycams I planted. I hoped rewatching those would be enough to keep my feet on the ground. I know I saw you on there a few times right after I moved, and then when I couldn't see you on the cams I could hear you until you shot the audio out with your screaming but…

It's all gone now. It's just hours of static. I don't understand. Did I ever record anything? Do I have spycams in your base? Zim, you have to tell me. The last cam is in the squidbrain testing part of your labs, under the third chamber. Please, write back and tell me it's there, that your base exists, and that you do too.

I scrolled through the Colledge catalog of classes. Completely STEM based. Don't get me wrong, I know why we need this stuff to keep society running and better the future of mankind, bla bla bla. It's all Dad bothers to talk to me about so I know the drill. But there's no place for curiosity beyond the boundaries of STEM teachings. You're only allowed to be curious inside the box. Again, don't get me wrong, it's a huge box, but it's still a box. And with Dad as the master of the box, I really don't want anything to do with it, y'know?

Of course not. Why would I even ask if you know something like that.

She knows, though. Sleep has been unusually good, lately. I think she might be singing me to sleep. Sometimes I think I can see her face pressing through the wall, like it's a sheet of cling-wrap and not drywall. I feel like I should be taking pictures, but what's the point? The paper vanishes under my fingers, the tapes are erased, nobody listens.

Either I'm alone and I've cracked or I have a ghost companion and I'm writing to an alien. Even if I have cracked, I know which one I'd rather believe. I don't think I could handle the other.

Third option is going to Colledge. I'd still be alone, but at least I'd hear the sound of other peoples' voices. Get bumped into by students in the hall. Addressed from time to time by the teachers.

Some Faustian deals aren't made with the devil, and they're not for your whole soul. Sometimes they're made with the world, and it's for just a few pieces of your soul. You know, the ones that make life worth living for you in particular, so you can put the rest of it toward some "higher good" or a "useful purpose." I'm not ready to take that deal just yet, but I can't say "never" like I used to, either.

-Dib

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I can safely say this story has taken a turn away from "personal processing of a move" into an exploration of loneliness and other things. I'm familiar with loneliness for sure. An old enemy I've fought tooth and nail since childhood. Nasty creature, that. I won't "note" as much in this fic since the chapters are so short, but if you're enjoying the story, please consider checking out my Patreon under this same username!


	12. Silent Treatment

Hey Spacejerk,

I wouldn't have thought you capable of subtle psychological warfare, but if you've learned, you learned well. Almost had me there, with your total silence. Well guess what? I'm stronger than your little mind games.

I've come to the conclusion that you had to have existed at some point. There are simply too many memories that intersect with other peoples' experiences of you, and I've taken to writing them all down in chronological order. I remember Gaz has repeatedly acknowledged your existence and even the fact that you're an alien. Other kids at Skool mocked you. Ms. Bitters loathed you openly, same as the rest of us students. I can't have populated this whole world with hallucinations. If I could do that, I certainly would have hallucinated myself a perceptive friend who saw through you.

Whether you continue to exist or not isn't something I can verify at this point since I still haven't heard a word from you. Who knows, maybe I'm blaming you for nothing. Maybe one of your stupid experiments ate your face off. That would be great.

No it wouldn't, actually. This is so stupid, Zim. How has it come to the point where I'd prefer you to be alive and screaming instead of dead and no longer a threat to the planet?

Well. That's easy to answer, actually. Next-level social isolation, and of course, Dad. He finally gave up waiting for me to change my mind. I woke up yesterday, locked into a mobility hoverchair. Two straps on each limb, two on my torso, two on my head. The chair must be remote controlled because, though I never saw someone steering, it hovered me out of the house and into the Colledge where I was already enrolled in a course (big surprise) called  _Applications of Scientific Knowledge For The Greater Good of Mankind._

A speaker set in the chair explained to the teacher (in Dad's voice) that I'd been in a terrible accident and would not be very responsive, but that my brain was perfectly active and required the class as mental exercise to keep it elastic and learning until the day Dad could structure me some new mecha body. The teacher, of course, was thrilled to have the son of Professor Membrane in class. The students were less than thrilled and there was immediately a circle of empty desks on every side of me.

That isn't the worst of it, though. I thought there was just a special mechanism to hold my jaw shut as part of the chair. You know, so my jaw doesn't dangle open from "the horrible accident"? Even though we both know the real reason he wants my jaw shut. But it wasn't part of the chair. Dad wired my jaw shut, Zim. For real. I can't talk anymore. And I can't write "Help, my Dad is imprisoning his full-grown son" in class because I can't move. You know, when I got home, Gaz just smirked at me?

At least he left me some pain meds for the completely illegal jaw surgery he did on me without consent. Guess he's only  _mostly_  cold-hearted monster.

I was released from the chair once I got back to my room. I don't know how, Zim, but I have to get out of here. If you weren't actively trying to destroy my homeworld, and if I was sure you were still out there, I'd actually consider asking you for help at this point. Nobody else would believe me, and even if you don't care, I know there's some twisted sense of ownership over my demise buried in you. If I could, I might just call on that.

Where are you?

-Dib


	13. Behind The Scenes

Hey Spacejerk,

Maybe I should talk some about my Dad. I know you met him once. You guys seemed to be getting along well. Pretty chummy guy, huh? Truth is, he is pretty good with people as long as he's not related to them. I guess it's called having charisma, or something. He rolled a nat 20 on that and I rolled a nat 1. I don't even care if you understand that reference from the ground up, but it means that he got all the people skills and I got none of them.

This, he is happy to expand on for hours at a time, is the foundation of how he got his first grant. Successful science ventures like his are 30% actual science and 70% salesmanship skills, according to him. He walked in to the city board of something or other and presented his blueprints for a more efficient pot-hole fixing substance he called RoadPaste. You could squeeze it out of a giant tube and tamp it even with the rest of the road, no other work needed. No mixing, no mess, and you would never see that hole again. In fact, it slowly strengthened the integrity of the street by seeping out into the rest of the road over time. Neat side effects of the product included eating the carcinogens out of the surrounding tar-based road and suppressing root growth in the surrounding area. But it was the strength of his presence that truly sold it, or so he says.

He's only gotten better at this over the years. I think I first became conscious of how popular my Dad was around age five, when we had to move to a new house. Something about overzealous fans trying to get ahold of DNA samples from our septic system or something. That's when Dad started working full-time at his lab and left us in the care of hoverscreens he'd developed and electrified the perimeter of the house.

If I had any photo or footage of him doing anything like actual parenting before that, I might chalk it up to a desire to protect us from the public eye. I'd even take remembering our birthdays or making attempt to visit us, secretly. All we get, though, is Family Night, where he fulfills all his obligation to us at once by gracing us with his presence once a year on a scheduled day. Sometimes he would come back and sit in front of the TV and Gaz would sit next to him, and they just watched Dad's shows. Sometimes he would tinker some in the basement, but he made it pretty clear that it was his space and we weren't to interrupt unless it was an emergency. So, yeah, I don't exactly trust there was some altruistic motivation behind separating himself.

He used to take it to crazy lengths, too. His lab security wasn't told he had kids, so if I came to visit, they fended me off like I was some fanboy. Gaz knew all the backdoors somehow, but I usually got Security's electric prod. And on the off-chance that I actually got in to see him? He'd pretend like he didn't know who I was. What the hell, Zim?

I have to believe it's because I'm that much of a disappointment to him. I've never played with the toys he wanted me to play with, I've never taken the classes he's wanted, I've never shown an interest in his world. But hey, turnabout is fair play, right? When did he ever pay attention to my interests and desires?

Because I'm such a disappointment, he never backs me up. Maybe once in a while he'll loan me equipment I need, but I'm pretty sure it's to get me out of his hair. But this one time—you remember when I got hauled out of class on Halloween? They took me to the Crazy House for Boys. Dad was on the examination board and he could have gotten me out with a few words, Zim. Just a couple words and pulling his clout a bit, but he just let them take me away.

It's gotten worse over the years. I'm starting to think he's isolated me and shut my mouth so that I can't embarrass him anymore. He's still sending me to class in the manner aforementioned in my last letter and I'm still expected to complete homework and send it in, but I can't communicate with my own mouth.

Not that anyone would believe me, even if I could tell them. My Dad is Professor Membrane, the guy who cut the entire world's carbon emissions in half last year and is currently working on a clean, easily implemented, inexpensive energy solution. I have a record of being committed to mental institutions. All Dad has to do is hang his head and murmur, "My poor, insane son," and he gets all the sympathy while I get sent to a padded room. Old Skoolmates thought I was a nutcase already, no help there. My new classmates won't come within five feet of me. My teacher absolutely fawns over me with the same look on his face he got the moment Dad's voice addressed him from the chair speakers. What are the chances he'll believe me about Dad, you think?

Even if I could talk or communicate somehow and even if I didn't have Dad's reputation hanging over my head like some sword of Damocles… I mean, let's say I wrote a letter out to someone other than you, right? I still rolled a nat 1 on charisma. I get so caught up in what I'm saying that I don't care how it comes out because damnit, I'm telling the truth and why can't anybody see that? But that's never won me any friends or believers, has it? I've screamed about the truth when it's staring them in the face. I mean, another alien abducted you in front of class, Zim, and all they saw was that a bird crapped on my shoulder.

And Gaz doesn't care. She actually still hangs on the minimal attention we get from Dad, so she turns on me every chance she gets for a few extra chunks of approval.

Like I said before, Zim. If anyone would believe me, it's you. At this point, even if I ditch the tracker, I'd die of starvation without the nutrient patches the hoverscreen administers every few hours, since I can't eat solid food.

The ghost has been reaching out of the walls more, lately. Stroking my forehead at night, telling me it will be okay. I keep dreaming about our last house and the fire I was too late to stop. Maybe moving away from everyone who even remotely knew me was why Dad felt he had a shot at reforming me into a copy of him. A last-ditch, desperate attempt. I don't think he sees anything but the importance of his work and his image anymore. Of course his work is super important, but why couldn't I be more important than all of that?

-Dib

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A guest asked if I was okay because of the last chapter and this being a vent fic. I can't respond directly to guests so I'm responding here. I apologize very much for causing concern by not being clear, and I will rectify that now. Yes, I am safe. Personal themes I explored in the beginning were about moving to a far-off location, and I've also explored some themes of loneliness (which I've dealt with more in the past but it rears up from time to time now too). Those are the only relevant-to-my-life themes within this story so far. Lately this fic has taken a turn into my more typical storytelling which leaves my real life pretty far behind. My typical storytelling usually involves analyzing cartoon characters and extrapolating either the good or bad turns they may have taken over time and personal development (in Membrane's case, even more controlling and uncaring toward family). That has no real parallel in my life, and neither does Dib slipping nearer and farther from sanity. Again, I apologize that I was not clear regarding that.


	14. The Cavalry

Hey Spacejerk,

Stuff just keeps being weird. That record I wrote of all my memories of you? I just looked it over again, and it looks like I was just scribbling in place for ten minutes on each line.

In the same vein (similar situation) I typed up all my homework because I'm bored as hell and I can't help but answer their prompts even if I hate the situation. When I get my reports back, about half of them are graded between 90 and 100% while the others are failing, and the failing ones look like a monkey banged on the keyboard for an hour. Zim, I absolutely know for a fact I was writing coherent essays the whole time.

What if this isn't just me losing my mind? What if there's actually something wrong with me? What do I do then? If it was a medical inquiry there's a tiny shot Dad might listen and get me scanned or something, but if I'm wrong he'll just start pumping me full of meds. I'm shocked he hasn't done that already.

What if

* * *

 

_FWOOSH._

Years of fight-or-flight reflexes kicked in and Dib pitched sideways out of his chair, yanking it in front of him like a shield and brandishing his pen. Smoke poured into his room through the charred hole in his door. Yanking his shirt over his nose, he peered into the cloud.

There. A dark shape in the smoke, moving toward him.

"Nugh!" Dib tried to shout, but his teeth barely separated.

A flash of blue. Numbness sank into his muscles as he crumpled to the ground.

Black.


	15. Doing Time

There was no song this time, only screaming. The ghost rended melodies into a distorted cacophony of vengeful shrieks as she stretched her face through layers of brain matter, gnashing her teeth and sending streaks of red across Dib's vision. Electric blue sizzled all around and cold fire blazed in his head.

He couldn't reach his vocal cords. His limbs refused to respond. The whole world shrank to the bounds of his skull, threatening implosion as a vise squeezed various corridors of his brain.

Someone raged loudly in a familiar foreign tongue.

Black.

* * *

 

Water.

Dib's tongue lay thick in his mouth and he held his jaws as far apart as he could to breathe past it—barely enough for a proper breath. His lips cracked as they parted and he groaned.

A trickle. A drop. He'd have happily licked condensation off a dirty window. It felt like someone had thoroughly sanded his trachea up to the esophagus and back down again, then encored by stitching his eyes shut and slicing through his spine just above the shoulders. Nothing in his body responded to his increasingly panicked attempts to stand. Roll over. Twitch. Anything!

A prick in his arm. Fear ebbed into exhaustion. Water would be great, but sleep was even better…

* * *

 

Everyone was always laughing and nobody believed him. Why couldn't they see what he saw? Did he just care more, or was there actually a problem with their eyes?

"Now, son, we all know there's no such things as ghosts. If you want to see something that's  _actually_ worth studying, look through this microscope!"

Evidence dismissed out of hand. Not a large enough sample size. Photo was blurry. Lens cap was on. Tainted samples. Obviously photoshopped. Obviously tampered with. Everybody knew that it, whatever he was chasing, didn't exist, therefore his proof was meaningless. It was only a matter of choosing which excuse to invalidate him with.

Not everyone. Not the ones he was chasing. They believed him. He was a threat to them. Someone to be taken seriously.

"My poor, insane son."

Watch out for Dib. He'll expose you and strew your guts all over an autopsy table. You'll be taken away and never seen again. Dib's dangerous. He's important.

* * *

 

Dib's eyelids fluttered open before his brain was ready to register images. Not that it mattered. By the state of the blobs and blurs around him, he could tell his glasses were missing.

A hard slab stretched flat underneath him from head to toe. Tentatively, he pushed against it and was rewarded with the upward motion of his body. The blobs tilted crazily and he sank back against the slab. In spite of the weakness, he was grateful to have some control of his body back.

_Click. Hisssss._

Something entered his field of vision, bringing two crystal clear circles close to his—oh. The robotic arm retracted back into the wall and Dib reached up to touch his glasses.

He was being monitored. But where was he?

The slab attached to the wall by one of the longer edges. Two chains latched onto the two free corners and anchored back into the wall, forming a triangle at either end of the slab.

He tried rising again, taking it a couple inches at a time and pausing anytime the room started to swim. There was a cracked sink set in the near wall and across from him was a small rust-streaked toilet. Three walls were solid blocks of cement while the fourth was lined with bars, broken only by a door in the center. The door hung crooked in its frame, but its attachment was supplemented by thick, shiny chains on its right and left sides.

Dad had… jailed him?

He sat there in shock for a full thirty seconds before deciding that wasn't possible. His Dad would never put him in a run-down jail that looked to be falling apart. If he was going to commit his son, it would be to a well run institution or jail. Even his father had standards to consider. Besides, it was dead quiet all around. Did this place even house anyone else?

At that moment, a small screen floated down the corridor outside his cell. It slipped sideways between the bars and approached Dib, crackling with static. It came to a halt two feet from Dib, then displayed a message in white lettering on a blue background.

**Y O U   H A V E   O N E   N E W   M E S S A G E .**

Below it were two buttons, one green and one red.

**A C C E P T   D E C L I N E**

Blinking, Dib pressed Accept. The screen returned to static crackling for a few seconds. Then the static vanished. Dib could hardly contain himself as Zim's scowling face filled the screen, red eyes narrow and antennae laid flat.

"Greetings, Earthstink."


	16. Reactionary Response

"First, in case you have gotten brainworms and had my name eaten out of your memory, I am Zim. Not Spacejerk. Zim. Although I would also accept 'Slave Master' or 'Overlord of Doom.'"

From his neck to his boots, Zim was dressed in a neon yellow hazmat suit. Between two thickly gloved claws, he held a crumpled sheet of notebook paper at arm's length.

"I received your most primitive and germ-filled communication today. This sort of monkey-scratch is beneath an Invader such as myself. You may choose to communicate like your earliest ancestors, but that doesn't mean I will reciprocate the form."

A laser blast disintegrated the paper, and Zim sneered, "How d'ya like that, Earth Smell? Your biological warfare has failed against a superior species. This base has been hand-scrubbed three times. Not one single germ will live to carry my secrets back to your filthy mouth!"

Dib smirked. He'd gotten under Zim's skin.

"And I absolutely will make this acid rain you speak of. Foolish of you to offer this idea to the enemy. I will use this acid rain and render your city a melty puddle of flesh-goo. Since you are no longer here, you can no longer stop me. Once I deliver this communication to your computer, I will begin my assault."

Zim put his fists on his hips, a pleased smile on his face. He looked like a deformed Teletubby in that hazmat suit, and Dib couldn't help laughing. As if he could hear the mockery, Zim frowned.

"Wait, Computer! Read back the transcript of the worm's letter. There was a thingy in the middle. What was the thingy?"

A pause. Then, a jolt ran up Zim's spine and his antennae twitched out in both directions. His tongue hung out for a moment before snapping back into his mouth. "Eh… what… oh, right. Right! Spy-cams. From the Dib. Those will be eradicated quite soon. Quite easy to find your earth technology. It stands out like a florb in a box of chewshmoops."

Frowning, Dib poked the screen. That twitch was kind of weird.

"And I don't  _need_  your stupid citizenry registration!" Zim shouted. "I can infiltrate your world perfectly! Without a trace! Untrackable Zim, that is me! The location I chose is perfect as it is! And you are stupid and smelly, and that is all!"

The screen turned blue again. The edge of the frame opened, extending a tiny tray with two pills. White letters flared on the screen.

**N U T R I T I O N   A N D   H Y D R A T I O N**

Dismayed, Dib took the pills. Did Zim seriously expect to keep him here and feed him pellets? The tray closed with a sharp click and the screen hovered off toward the bars.

"Nugh!" Dib lunged forward, trying to catch the device. The room pirouetted as he hit the ground, moaning and clutching his stomach. Too fast. His head throbbed and he pressed his forehead to the cool concrete floor. He felt the pills sliding around in his sweaty grip.

He had no idea why he was being held in a prison, but if Zim had wanted him dead, he'd already be dead. Grimly, he eased the pills through the tiny gap between his teeth and swallowed.

Metal tendrils wrapped around his chest and waist, dragging him back onto the pallet. He shut his eyes, breathing slowly through his nostrils to ease the nausea. He just had to endure until he could get word… to…

Nobody. There wasn't anybody. He'd written to Zim and Zim had come. There wasn't anyone better than Zim to save him, and Zim hated his guts. Sighing, he pulled the thin blanket up over his body and faced the wall. If that was the case, all he could do was endure and see what the space freak had in mind.


	17. Objection!

_Blat. Blat. Blat. Blat._

Rolling over, Dib swatted at his alarm clock. He didn't feel like going to class today. If Dad wanted to send him off, he'd have to get his assistants to fight his full-grown son into a hover-chair because there was no way Dib was going after getting kidnapped by…

Oh.

There was no alarm clock. There was no Dad, no hoverchair, no overpaid assistants. Just a hoverscreen blaring insistently, a foot out of reach.

Sitting up came easier than the day before. His throat still hurt and the room wasn't completely steady, but less tipsy now. Had it been yesterday? He wasn't sure how much time had passed.

The screen displayed another message.

**Y O U   H A V E   O N E   N E W   M E S S A G E .   A C C E P T   D E C L I N E .**

The "Accept" button flashed with each  _blat_  the screen blared. Scowling, Dib wobbled over to the sink, twisting the knob. Coppery-smelling water coughed out of the spout and dripped through the crack to the floor. Dib splashed a handful over his face anyway and ran a wet hand through his hair.

There was no hair. He encountered bare skin and a long puckered line. His stomach twisted and he fought to keep himself from vomiting. Even bile could choke him if he couldn't get it out of his mouth right.

_Blat. Blat. Blat. Blat. Blat._

Taking in slow breaths through his nose, he bent his head down and was able to get a few drops of rusty water in between the gaps in his teeth. It didn't help much. Had Zim gone into his head? Why?

_Blat. Blat. Blat._

Growling, Dib turned and slapped the "Accept" button. Zim's face flickered on the screen.

"Greetings, Earthstink."

It gave Dib no small amount of satisfaction to see Zim's eye twitching and his antennae hanging limp on either side of his head. Dib's eyes widened. He recognized this look. The last time he'd seen Zim like this it was on the recordings he got off the few remaining spycams, shortly after his second letter. Had Zim been recording responses to him this whole time?

"You think you are so clever, feeding me false information about acid rain and what it means. Nobody melted, fool. Acid must not mean the same thing to your entire species as it does to mine. Stop trying to confound the situation by telling me the same word has two meanings to your kind! No sentient society, no matter how primitive, could survive with such a contradictory communication system! It would tear itself apart first.

"No matter. This is merely a minor setback. Everything is merely a minor setback." His voice pitched up. "The not-acid rain is a minor setback. The hours I spent researching your stupid meaningless sentences about dangerous spaghetti and magical horses is just a minor setback. The Tallests are—" He twitched, his eyes losing their gleam and going dull for a moment. He jolted, continuing his tirade, "—testing me to be sure I am worthy of the honor they have bestowed upon me. Your misinformation will not stop my progress."

Zim leaned toward the camera. "Did you think I would not find the repository of all meme knowledge? Did you think I would not understand you were mocking me? Oh, yes. I have discovered the human's information network and there is absolutely no meaning to your insipid taunts. You will pay for this distraction. For every day I spent—" There it was again. Much quicker, this time, barely a flicker. "—r-r-researching your planet's customs on my own, I am that much closer to accomplishing my goal of infiltrating your defenseless rock!"

Dib found himself wondering if this happened on a regular basis, and how often he'd missed it. He would have to be looking hard to catch a quick jerk like that. He'd always dismissed Zim as a spastic, flailing moron when he got into rants, but was there more to it? He was pretty sure Zim had meant to threaten him just now. Where did the other half of that go?

Balling his claws up, Zim slammed his fists onto the desk. The camera shook as he yelled at it, "And I didn't set your stupid house on fire! If I'd done it, you'd be a pile of ashes right now and I'd be celebrating your demise with a trip back to Irk to deliver your remains to my Tallests in person. I'm not so incompetent as to leave a job half done, you pile of slangime!"

The screen faded to static and the little tray with the pills slid out. Mechanically, Dib took them, staring blankly at the screen. What did Zim mean he hadn't started the fire? Of course he did! Dib had caught him at… at the back of the house… hadn't he?

He crossed his legs on the pallet as he watched the hoverscreen float off. Zim was just lying. He failed at stuff all the time. Dib had upset more of his plans than he could count. But… Zim also loved to gloat over plans that accomplished even part of his intended destruction. He hadn't killed Dib, but he had destroyed his home and forced a move. He should be taking credit for that. Right?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crazy busy around here and wrestling with the muse, so sometimes there will be gaps. But the story is far from over! Thanks for your patience. If you're enjoying the story, consider checking out my Patreon and its perks! I'm currently tearing apart my oldest Invader Zim fanfiction a few chapters at a time at the $5 level.


	18. Regret Everything

Dib wrapped his arms around his stomach. He'd have given an eyeball for a steak, medium-well, with perfectly caramelized trim and hot garlic mashed potatoes. He'd stopped feeling his stomach cramp by the end of the first week of Nutri-patches with Dad, but the craving for solid food never quit.

Zim's nutrition and hydration pills, on the other hand, put just enough in his stomach to awaken its roaring protest over continued deprivation. He traced the edges of his cell a footstep at a time, measuring and re-measuring his space.

Curiosity killed the cat, and he had, he decided, been a royal idiot to push "Decline" on the screen last time it had come in. The device had merely swiveled about and left him. That day's rations weren't dispensed. He wasn't sure if that was why he was still woozy, or if he hadn't yet recovered from whatever horror Zim had inflicted on his head.

He was staring at the wall again. The ghost hadn't appeared once since he'd been kidnapped. But then, ghosts were often anchored to places. Haunts. It was unlikely she would have followed him here. Dropping his eyes back to his feet, he trudged on, humming the song she used to sing.

The concrete floor was questionably stained in a couple of areas that Dib tended to avoid, one reddish-brown blotch just in front of the toilet, and another at the edge of the pallet.

The walls were marked with scratches, etchings from previous inhabitants. He didn't want to read them just yet. There was no telling how long he would be here, and he needed to conserve sources of mental stimulation for when he was desperate.

He couldn't get a decent look at the ceiling. Getting closer would require standing on the tallest part of the room, which was the sink. It was cracked enough that, given proper conditions, it might come apart.

No such luck with the door, though. The chains wrapping each side in place were the newest, cleanest parts of the entire prison, leading him to suspect Zim hadn't known how else to secure the busted door.

He didn't want to count the bars in the front wall of the cell, or the holes between them. That was another source of mental stimulation he could conserve. Right now, he could manage with just the questions in his head.

Like, how long could he last on just the questions in his head?

What kind of idiot pushes the "Decline" button when he could have gotten at least another face to look at and another voice to hear, if not real interaction?

Why was Zim being weird… er… than usual?

There was no window in Dib's cell and none in the cell across from his, which seemed identical to his. There was no way to tell how much time had passed, short of counting seconds out loud, which Dib was dangerously close to doing by the time the hovering screen returned. Dib had never hit "Accept" so fast in his life.

Zim's teeth were clenched. Spittle flew as he hissed out the words, "I hear you like hearing me scream at mailboxes. As such. I have provided you a record of the news report you spoke of. On a cycle. For the next ten hours."

Dib's hands flew to his ears, but he couldn't block out the high-pitched scream. There was the news report he'd laughed about months ago. Zim, standing in full disguise in front of his mailbox, cursing its spawner, cursing its mate, cursing its future spawn, and generally shrieking like a banshee on the eve of war.

The screen didn't leave this time. It spat out the two pellets and drifted up to the ceiling, pressing flat against the center.

Moaning, Dib retreated to his pallet and wrapped the scrawny pillow around his head. It was going to be a long ten hours.


	19. Rule of Three

The hoverscreen's chosen spot on the ceiling was far enough from every wall of the room that Dib could not reach it. Not from a precarious perch atop the sink, not leaping from his pallet, and not even after shimmying to the top of the cell's bars and reaching out an impressively short distance from the top. He couldn't even splash it, cupping handfuls of water and flinging them fruitlessly at the ceiling. The ringing in Dib's ears competed with, but couldn't quite drown out, Zim's hateful shrieking.

The only relief he could muster came by wrapping the pancake-thin pillow around the back of his head, but this only dropped the intensity by a few decibels. Briefly, he considered sticking his head down the toilet to see if water blocked Zim's unnatural pitch any better, but abandoned it after a brief inspection. The bowl never held more than a couple of cups' worth at a time. And the sink had no plug, so that was a bust.

Curled up on his pallet, clinging to the pillow, Dib couldn't help wondering how Dad hadn't come for him yet. Surely it had been long enough. At the very least two days had passed, if not more, and he could barely be late home these days without Security raining down on him.

The tracker was gone. He stared at his leg and wondered how he hadn't even noticed. The heavy black band around his ankle had been the source of a ridiculous amount of misery, so prison cell and Zim kidnapping or no,  _how had he overlooked its absence?_

Silence fell, sudden and thick, pressing in on his ears with near palpable pressure.

_Well that's that. The idiot blew my eardrums to hell. I'm deaf now._

This hypothesis fell apart as the hoverscreen detached from the ceiling and drifted down to him with the notification of another message, the irritating  _blat, blat, blat_ clearly audible.

Dib hesitated. Had it been ten hours? That had definitely felt like a very long time, probably two or three, but not ten hours. It was getting harder to discern passage of time, but that could not have been ten hours. Not even close. What would the next message be like? How else was Zim going to punish him for his letters? His eyes drifted to the  **DECLINE**  button.

In that moment, he realized he hadn't felt utterly abandoned by existence for a solid… however many hours that Zim had been screaming at him.

He jabbed  **ACCEPT**  so hard that he sent the screen backward.

Zim appeared on the screen, still bedraggled, but smirking this time. "Heh, your parental unit's HomeDrone sounds pathetic if you can give it the slip. A thoroughly incompetent security system. You would think he would know someone like you needs much heavier guarding to be restrained. Fool. Keeping you out, contained, or giving you the slip requires extraordinary measures."

Dib exhaled hard like he'd been punched in the gut and he wasn't even sure why.

Zim jerked, choking slightly, then glared at Dib. "Not that I was ever unable to do all of these things and more. I could have crushed you any time. I was just waiting for the most opportune time, which may well be soon. I tire of your pathetic paper scribbles. The only reason I read them any more is that you are handing over valuable information.

"You see, Earth-Smell," Zim purred, a gloating smile on his face, "You are handing over information most enemies wouldn't offer under torture. There are places in this world where the water is thick in the air and could kill me? Places where the water comes down in an endless torrent? Well. I will incorporate this information into a new design, an experimental armor that will filter the air and deflect all water. I will not be killed by mere environment, and all the earth films that say I will are  _stupid_ and don't know  _anything_ about Irken determination!"

Zim paused for a minute, and narrowed his eyes at the screen. "What would I do with a long legged bird? Obviously I would take it to my labs and scan it to see if it has any usefulness in my plans, then hand it over to GIR for whatever he wants to do with it. He has quite a collection of creatures I have no use for, now. Some of them he pretends are his friends. Some of them do not survive his 'friendship.'" He shuddered. "Hideous thing, this friendship, every time I see how it works I find it is more and more dangerous. Perhaps," he mused, tapping his chin with a claw, "Perhaps I can find a way to weaponize it. Yes. I think I will research friendship."

Dib rolled his eyes.  _Yeah. Just don't tell Keef about that project._

Zim shuddered, grimacing. "Keef must never discover this research."

The screen went blank, and Dib put a hand over his stomach. His gut still ached, and it was different than the usual hunger.

Zim thought he was a credible threat. Zim had always said Dib was just a foolish, easily defeatable Earth child, but what Zim did spoke louder than what he said. Zim laid elaborate traps into wormholes for Dib, built entire virtual reality chambers to coax information from him, and even treated simple Skool fundraising competitions against Dib with the same deadly seriousness he brought to his plans of planetary destruction.

_Blat. Blat. Blat._

Dib glanced up, blinking. The screen hadn't gone away. In fact, there was another message waiting for him. Three in one day? Was Zim getting tired of his waiting game? Dib accepted the message.

Zim stood in the middle of a large pile of envelopes, teeth clenched and murder in his eyes.

"My mailbox was overflowing with suspicious looking envelopes! The mail delivery drone questioned my normalcy!" Zim arched his back and inhaled deep, then leaned forward and roared, "Stop sending me letters! Stop it! When I find you, I'm going to take every one of these and cram them down your air tube! And I will find you! As the very last thing I do on this planet, I will find you and make you pay!"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a lot closer to the wedding date and I'm still working on furnishing/decorating the house we moved to. So a warning, if things go dead quiet around Mid-October through late November, it's because I'm in the middle of wedding whirlwind. Fun side note, I got to meet up with Ffnet user EndlessMemories, old high school friend I hadn't talked to for ten years, the person who first explained to me what fanfiction even was. I got to point at her and yell, "IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT," as she laughed her head off. Good times. Many thanks to Misty for our "word war" that spurred me to write a new chapter, and for feedback on the story and this chapter.


	20. False Accusations

Three messages. Two more than he had been expecting, but then again should he have been expecting two? He had, after all, pushed  **DECLINE**  once and maybe the messages stacked once you did that?

He was overthinking it, probably. It had been three, after all, not two, like it would have been if it really was stacking messages. Zim was probably just getting impatient.

There wasn't much to do besides overthink, though. And sleep. He hated sleeping, he had no sense of a day anymore. Zim could have had him there three days or three weeks for all he knew.

The scar on his head was still tender, so, maybe not three weeks. Was he going to have to measure the passage of time by the regrowth of his hair? He wasn't eating normal food, so measuring time by frequency of toilet usage was unreliable.

His back pressed against the concrete wall, covering the scratchings of previous prisoners that he was becoming more and more tempted to read. There was still no telling how long he'd be here and there were only so many ways he could try to figure out a passage-of-time marker. At least a few more… days… or cycles of messages. Dib promised himself he would get to read the marks on the wall then. The longer you held out, he reasoned, the less chance you had of succumbing to the insanity of solitary confinement.

His spine straightened as the hoverscreen drifted toward his cell.

**Y O U   H A V E   T W O   N E W   M E S S A G E S .**

_Two messages today!_ Exhuberant, he lunged forward, hitting  **ACCEPT**  before it could begin squawking at him.

"AhaHA!" Zim's face filled the screen, eyes gleaming, a toothy grin splitting the green in half. "You truly are pathetic. Sad little whimpering mewling monkeyspawn! This is victory!" Zim shoved the self-addressed stamped envelope Dib had sent him. "Now that you have explained-" Zim's antennae shot out in different directions and his face twisted for a moment before returning to the grin, "-handed over vital intelligence that I have, by my intentional refusal to communicate, extracted from you, I have your location!"

_You had it the whole time, moron. It was on the corner of every envelope that came to your house. You just didn't know what those numbers meant. Admit it. Freaking aliens._

"Look at this!" Zim's face was replaced by Dib's hand-written letter. "Look at this chronicle of your utter lack of control. You're begging for my plans." He paused, yanking the letter away and scanning it again. "You're… begging." He frowned, staring intently at the paper. "You… always  _demand_  to know my plans. What is this begging?"

Lifting his shoulders and dropping them, he crumpled up the letter and tossed it out of view. "Two weeks locked in your room and you're suffering boredom. Oh poor worm. Poor smeetling." A strange note crept into Zim's tone. "Punished for being a disappointment, well. I guess you just didn't work hard enough to please your parental unit."

 _Damn you._ Dib's teeth ground together.  _What would you even know about it?_

Zim stood with his back to the camera now. "As for the cows going on strike, it was GIR's plan. It was a good plan. It was executed in his honor and achieved a measure of chaos, which is good. Enough small measures of chaos and larger measures can slip through less noticeably.

"Lastly, you don't see me on your cameras because I have been preparing to leave. I have packed all I need in the Voot Cruiser. Do not expect a mailed response from me, earth-stink. I am coming in person, and I'm bringing everything I might possibly need to make you… shall we say, very uncomfortable." He glanced over his shoulder, eyes slitted. "My mailbox will scan further correspondence from you and transmit it to me before incinerating it. Expect me soon, Dib-worm." Then he chuckled. "But then, you can't expect me, can you?" He laughed harshly. "Oh I look forward to this."

Dib blinked at the fading screen. Nothing Zim just said or did indicated an intention to mail a bomb. Then again, it was Zim. He probably got halfway to the post office by Dib and then decided he wanted to come in with a bang. But Dib had another message to listen to. He wondered what Zim had to say about his plan to blow Dib up failing. Dib poked the screen again.

Zim returned with a wrathful screech. "I did  _not_  send you a bomb! I told you that I would not lower myself to using your repulsively primitive communication system! Why on targlath do you insist on fitting me into your theories about why your house burned down or why you had a bomb mailed to you when I have technology that could tear you apart at a molecular level! Why would I  _bother_  with something as clumsy as a bomb? Or  _matches_? It's just a matter of time before I find your true place of residence and then your continued insults and mockery will be paid back tenfold!"

Dib's jaw strained against the wires. "Ngugh!" He pointed at the screen, jabbing it. Zim  _had_  burned his house down! He'd seen Zim running away that night! And if Zim hadn't sent the bomb, who had? Zim was the only one who really hated him that much! He grabbed the corners of the hoverscreen before it could slip away, shaking it. "Nu-ugh!"  _Come out and face me for real you vile green slime from-_

Cold fire flashed up Dib's arms. Then, nothing.


	21. What Is Happening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I lied. I didn't mean to lie but I also didn't realize that yeah it's about to get darker. So, here's your warning. I really should know better at this point. If you're unsure which letter Zim is reading at this point, it's chapter 9.

_Zim doesn't know what I'm talking about._

This was the thought that greeted Dib as he woke to the sight of the gray, concrete ceiling above him. The screechy rage wasn't manufactured, it was real affront at being accused of something Zim didn't do that had failed anyway.

But it was Zim. Of course he'd hate being shown up as incompetent, right?

This was different. When you watched Zim for long enough, you got to know when he was blustering to cover a mistake and when he was truly angry. He starting throwing accusations back and threatening you instead of talking about how great and grand he was. And he hadn't lapsed or paused once.

The calm from being unconscious began slipping away. If not Zim, then who? His old classmates? They couldn't possibly have cared or hated him enough to risk jail. Even if they did, everyone loved his Dad. They wouldn't set his house on fire, not if they thought he probably went home every night.

"Hah. Hah." The sound came out weak and scratchy from his throat.

And those guys definitely wouldn't know where to send a bomb, so not them. Gaz? Gaz… was a distinct possibility. She hated him and knew Dad was almost never home. Maybe she framed him. Or maybe she wanted to get away from that city and forced a fresh start. Dammit, couldn't she have waited another year or two? She was almost legal herself… which… negated the probability that she had done it. If Gaz had already waited this long, she would wait another year or two to get out. Might even torch the house on her way out, but not before. Not while she'd be stuck with Dib.

Probably. As best as he could guess with Gaz, anyway. Not like she was open with much but her disdain for people and love for video games.

Could Dad…  _would_  Dad have done it?

Dib couldn't think of a reason that Dad would have, but he also couldn't think of a reason he wouldn't. Did he know for sure where Dad was that night?

Yeah. He'd been down in the basement, tinkering. It was a rare night where he'd been back. Dib had heard him zapping things downstairs. Dad was definitely home. He  _could_  have. But… why? And why the bomb? It didn't make enough sense. Yet.

He rolled over on his side and glanced at the underside of the cot. He realized with a cold start that this was one place in the cell he had not even tried to look, and he knew he should have tried because there were two very large coils of metal on the underside of the bed platform. The platform was held up by chains and there was no need for further support, so these coils weren't structurally necessary. He reached a hand toward them.

They uncoiled fast as a blink and two sets of robotic arms swayed like snakes from under the bed, the tips unfolding into metallic graspers that clicked and spun threateningly. He remembered now, these had dragged him to bed toward the beginning of his stay and returned his glasses. They didn't fold into the wall like he thought, he must have gotten turned around, or… his hand drifted up to his head. Maybe he hadn't fully recovered from whatever Zim had done. Whatever the case, this was new, exciting information.

_Nothing else in this cell has a shot of coming off and helping me break out, but Zim obviously planted these here. If I can pry them loose I bet there's something in them I can use to break out. There's two and they probably defend each other, so I'll have to be fast and pull really hard. Or maybe I can get them to attack each other? Maybe-_

The arms retracted, coiling back up under the pallet as a familiar whirring approached. Dib rolled himself up to a sitting position, frowning at the hoverscreen as it approached. It was sparking a little, its screen off kilter from Dib's attack, but still flashed its customary message.

Today there were six messages. That would bring Zim through the remaining letters… plus one? Apparently Zim wanted to end this faster. Whatever that end was, it couldn't be worse than waiting here another week while Zim drip-fed him responses. He pushed  **ACCEPT** , trying to bring his focus back to the screen.

"Greetings, Earth Smell." Dib could see Zim in full profile now, sitting in the cockpit of his Voot Cruiser. "I have been unable to locate your actual place of residence and have had to retreat to orbit to try and sift through the unimaginable amount of data beams that leave this rock for any clues. You must be near your mail-place, but the smelly post office drones know nothing of your true dwellingplace. It does not matter. I will find you, soon.

"In between analyzing the information beams, I have conducted further research on the weaponization of friendship, but the topic has already been explored and appropriated by tiny multichromatic horses with various deformities on their heads and backs. While I have seen no evidence of their existence in your city, it is clear they harvested enough power from this 'friendship' to hide an entire world in plain sight. Transmission of their lives comes to me regularly. I believe they are attempting to brainwash me, and while the fact that they can use this 'friendship' to bend their surroundings to their will and flatten their opposition is very tempting, they will not get Zim so easily."

Dib's head tilted back and his chest shook with laughter. Oh gods. If this was what Dib thought it was, he'd struck gold. If he got out of here, he would never, ever let Zim live this down.

Zim's screen blorped. He peered at it. "In the meantime, I have received your latest correspondence." He tapped the screen in front of him. "Let's see what insipid drudgery you have sent this time."

After a few seconds, he opened his mouth in a sneer, and then it froze like that. Slowly, he closed his mouth again, a scowl creeping across his face.

It was only a flash, but Dib saw the little backpack on Zim's back spark. Zim's face spasmed, his eyes going dull and his tongue jutting out a full foot before returning to his mouth. Zim blinked, his forehead wrinkling in a very human expression for a moment, before his eyes refocused on the screen in front of him.

Again, the little frown. Again, the PAK sparked. This time Zim's arms flew out, slamming the panels in front of him. The view outside the Voot windshield tilted. Zim gasped, scrabbling at the controls. "What?! I… what?!" He wrenched a lever, breathing hard as the ship stabilized. "What…" To Dib's alarm, Zim's eyes drifted back to the screen with Dib's message on it.

_Don't! Don't do it, something's wrong!_

A full arc of electricity shot from Zim's PAK to the back of his head. The Irken flailed like a puppet with strings being jerked in all directions. The view out the window spun wildly as his forehead hit the control panel.

_Get up! Wake up, Zim!_

Zim did not wake up. The view outside the window spun faster and faster until there was a terrible shattering sound and the camera went dark.

There was no "next message" screen yet. Dib held his breath.

The screen flickered badly now, cutting in and out of the scene. An empty voot cruiser, the cockpit on fire. Zim crawling back into the cockpit, groping for the camera. Frantic gaspy noises as Zim crawled away, the camera jerking every time his hand came up and back down to the ground.

Finally the view stabilized on Zim's face, wild-eyed and screaming, "What did you  _do_ , Dib? Did you lay traps in your letter? You did, didn't you! You set traps in your letter that caused my voot to crash! AUGH!" The camera flew through the air, thudding to the ground. From the angle it had landed, Dib could only see Zim's legs as he either sat or lay back on the grass, and they were shaking uncontrollably. "NO!" Zim shrieked. "NO, you did not bypass superior Irken technology, that is not what happened! It is not possible for an inferior species! What happened does not matter because I will find you and kill you!" His legs stopped shaking and Zim made an odd choked noise. "Yes… yes, I will wipe you and your whole species off the face of the planet." His voice came out calmer, more collected than usual. "Then I will grind this ball of dirt into nothing and scatter its remains into deep space. That is all that matters."

Goosebumps ran up Dib's arms as he stared at the screen, trying to process what he'd just seen.

Zim sat up, a blissful, contented smile on his face, and turned to the camera. The smile hung all wrong and his eyes glittered unusually bright in the light of his burning voot. Dib's skin crawled at the utterly wretched tone of voice coming from those smiling lips.

"What… is happening…"


	22. Charades

The next message screen appeared. Dib put up a hand, palm out flat to the screen, grunting. He needed time to think about what he'd just seen, get his thoughts in order. What he wouldn't give for a sheet of paper and a pencil.

To his surprise, the message screen faded away. He hadn't actually thought grunting at it would stop the alarm-clock blatting that accompanied unopened messages. The screen now displayed the words  **TAP SCREEN WHEN YOU WISH TO CONTINUE.**

Dib's pulse quickened. This was Irken tech. Of course. Even their most basic A.I. programs were probably better, faster, more responsive than Earth's highest level attempts. He waved at it, hoping his hunch was correct, and mimed writing something on a pad of paper. The screen fizzled for a moment, then displayed the words,  **PRISONER REQUESTS EATING IMPLEMENTS. CORRECT/INCORRECT.**

He pushed  **INCORRECT**.

**PRISONER REQUESTS UNDERWATER WEAVING MATERIALS. CORRECT/INCORRECT.**

Dib waved his hand in frustration. Playing charades with alien software wasn't getting him anywhere. He had to deal with the real problem before he could get complex needs across. He pulled back his lips and traced the wires along his teeth. If the wires were removed, he could deal with the tongue clamp himself.

**PRISONER REQUESTS REMOVAL OF ORAL RESTRICTION. CORRECT/INCORRECT.**

_Correct!_

**PRISONER UNDERSTANDS THAT ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE INCINERATION. CORRECT/INCORRECT**

_Figures_. Rolling his eyes, Dib punched  **CORRECT.**

**DO NOT MOVE.**

Miniature versions of the coiled up robotic arms under his pallet extended from the hoverscreen. Dib braced himself, even as the hair on the back of his neck rose. The little arms grasped the wires between his teeth. There was a snipping sound and then a scraping noise and he could feel one of the applied braces tumbling off a tooth. He held very, very still as the arms worked their way around in Dib's mouth, trying hard not to swallow as saliva pooled on his tongue.

What seemed like an eternity later, the hoverscreen removed itself from Dib's mouth.  **SELF STERILIZATION PROCESS INITIATED.** It managed a little shudder as its arms glowed bright red.

Dib backed away. He swallowed and massaged his jaw with bony fingertips. He creaked his mouth open, experimentally. The jaw joint ached a little, but that was to be expected. Reaching in, he removed a small tongue clamp and threw it across the room.

"Ha.. He… Hey… Space… Jerk…" he croaked. "I.. hah… haha…" tears streamed down his cheeks. "Hahahaha! You think you can keep me… here? Do you?" He panted. He hardly cared what he was saying. "You think you're so big, but I am Dib Membrane and, and, and… something impressive! Haha!" He sat down hard, wiping his eyes.

_Blat. Blat. Blat. Blat._

The hoverscreen had finished sanitizing itself and now blared at him to accept the new message.

"Um," he mumbled, "Can I get something to write with?"

Immediately the hoverscreen folded up and left. Within minutes, it returned with a small datapad and a stylus. Dib took both and scribbled a bit. The screen captured his stylus motion perfectly. "Okay. I accept the next message."

There were dark blueish circles under Zim's eyes and his antennae hung crooked. If Dib wasn't mistaken, his skin leaned more toward yellow than green this time.

"I have scavenged any unbroken equipment from the Voot. That equipment itself was scavenged from what was left intact at the base. I will rain… down… doom…" Zim seemed to fold on himself. "Flirk it," he muttered. "You already know what I'll do to you when I catch you."

"I have established a temporary base in an abandoned holding facility for humans deemed unsalvagable by other humans. They need more of these, there obviously isn't enough to hold all of humanity." He smirked at his own cleverness, but the gloating was fleeting. "Your communications are laced with traps that you believe are terribly clever, but they are not. They are the most unclever things in the world and I will tell you exactly why you are wrong."

Dib scribbled down:  _Zim thinks I booby trapped letters. Cue words frying his PAK?_

"In regards to your previous communication. First," Zim stressed, holding up one finger. Dib snorted. Zim was inadvertently flipping him off. "Your parental unit is your authority. Your weakness as a planet is how much rebellion your authorities allow. You are divided among yourselves, and this is one of the many reasons you deserve to be destroyed. The tracker was a corrective measure, as was the restraining army of humans that came to retrieve you when you tried to disable it. You are displaying highly defective behavior and deserve everything you received in punishment. Which," Zim spat, "was the very least that could be done to you and still be deemed punishment."

Dib's eyes narrowed. Zim's usual bombastic delivery was missing. It was like a rote recitation until the very last sentence.

"Second," and here Zim raised another finger alongside the first, "How sure are you that you didn't start the fire, Dib? You are quick to accuse me. But your father thinks you started the fire and the authorities must think you did as well." He leaned forward. "What are your brainmeats hiding, I wonder? If I prodded your memories, what would I see, Dib? I think I will prod your brainmeats."

Nausea clutched Dib's stomach. He stumbled back, running a hand over the still puckered line across his scalp, breathing hard. He would never sleep again.

"Third," and all three claws on one hand were lifted. "Perhaps your earth technologies are primitive enough to be 'hacked' as you put it, but nobody can bypass Irken technology."

That wasn't even remotely true and Zim  _knew_  it. Dib himself had owned an Irken ship and overwritten it with his own personality, something that, by Zim's claims, should not be able to happen. Why claim something like that when he knew otherwise?

"Fourth, you are pathetic." Zim glowered at the screen. "Utterly and thoroughly pathetic. In addition to the last trapped letter, I received a new one, and it seems you can do nothing but bemoan your current situation. Do you expect me to cry over you? HAH. I laugh at your misery. I laugh at what you  _think_  is misery. Rest assured, I will teach you what misery truly is, sad little Earth-monkey."

"Fifth, if you are so easily deluded about reality by the absence of communication, perhaps I should just lock you in a box and see how long it takes you to believe you're a rock on the ground."

Dib clutched the stylus. Zim wouldn't… would he? He had prodded Dib's brain, but… he wasn't just going to leave him here once the messages were over, was he?

"Sixth, your ghost…" he frowned, pausing for a lengthy period of time before trying again. "Your ghost…" and he lapsed into silence again, his forehead furrowing. "Your ghost is perplexing," he said, finally. "I have many questions that will not be answered until I have you in my custody. Therefore I must find out where I have landed and how far it is from your location as soon as possible. I will be seeing you soon, Dib-worm."

Still sickened, Dib began taking notes the moment the screen faded.  _Zim lists all issues he has with my letters. Required to negate them? By who? Some negations false and he knows it. Why?_

He wiped cold sweat from his forehead and dropped down to a new paragraph.  _Experience with Irken PAK: stores memory and personality of Irken it is attached to. If it discovers new host, will attempt to overwrite old memories of new host._  Dib shuddered, pressing a hand to his stomach.  _Original host dies within ten minutes of removal. Questions: What other functions inherent to PAK?_ His eyes rolled back as he listed off the ones he could remember from his old notes and blurry snapshots of Zim.  _Long-distance communication with their technology or each other, small storage space for gadgetry on the go, contains small weapons and long spiderlegs that allow for height, mobility, and scaling capabilities. Jet packs. Life support of some sort._

He'd only ever met Tak and Zim. He'd seen another Irken steal Zim out of class in front of all his classmates, but Zim would never talk about that or answer any questions when he returned. He'd spoken with the Irken leaders through Zim's communication. Every Irken he'd seen had a PAK of some sort.

 _Are PAKs connected? Hive mind, or individuals?_  It took all of a second to answer himself.  _Individual. Tak and Zim too different._

_Blat. Blat. Blat. Blat._

"Shut up!" Dib glared at the screen. "I have to think for a minute."

_PAKs not connected inherently but can connect. Someone puppeting Zim?_

He hesitated. He didn't have enough pieces to be anywhere near sure. What bothered him more was why Zim felt the need to go through his letter and crush every part that disturbed him. Was that part of why his PAK had zapped him?

There was only one way to find out. Lifting his eyes to the hoverscreen, he tapped  **ACCEPT**. Time to observe.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your kind words so far! This is the semi-chapter reminder that I have a Patreon if you are interested in more that I might be able to offer. I also have a Ko-Fi. However, neither are necessary and I appreciate every drop of love you guys are giving my story. Ya'll make my day every time. Thank you.


	23. Thoughtcrimes

Zim's wormy tongue dangled an inch over the edge of his lip, his teeth parted to allow great draughts of air in and out. Dark patches of scarlet stained the brighter ruby of Zim's eyes, giving them a mottled appearance. His antennae hung limp at the sides of his head.

"Since… you have been… so keen… to attack the mind of your future…. slave… master… with hideously boring… details… I will… enact the same… upon you."

Dib's knuckles whitened around the datapad. For the first time it crossed his mind that this was all a lead-up to finding Zim's corpse. It would, of course, be rigged with some trap that would murder Dib the second he figured out what had happened. He didn't need to know much about the alien's inner workings to see that he was in very bad shape, maybe even dying. No bruises and no apparent broken bones to indicate a fight, though. Whatever was killing Zim was attacking from inside.

 _Definitely PAK malfunction,_ Dib scrawled. But without knowing which parts of his letters had triggered Zim, he was stuck as to why the PAK was lashing out.

Zim took a long drink out of a bright purple can, crushed it, and threw it over his shoulder. Words came to him more smoothly now, though his voice cracked often. "Most of my tools and machinery were badly damaged in the crash. I've spent hours stripping it all down to bare components and reassembling it. It is missing key and most essential programming from the Empire, but I have done my utmost to adhere to their guidelines." He slumped back into some creaky seat. Now that Zim wasn't hogging the camera, Dib could see wires and circuits and strange implements strewn on a desk in front of Zim. A concrete wall served as the backdrop. It looked similar to his own cell, minus any sink, toilet, or bed.

"I received your latest communication." Zim picked up some device and fiddled with it, keeping his eyes down. "I have come to the conclusion that this ghost of yours is a hallucination, Dib. The situation may even be worse than a mere hallucination, but I will not know until I have been inside your head. I have strong suspicions that one of our battles affected you in ways neither of us expected."

Dib's mouth dropped open.

"Though I am surprised how badly you misplaced your senses." Zim glanced up at the screen. "Disappointed, really. Did you actually think you imagined me? Fah. You don't have the imaginative capacity to construct my greatness."

Overwhelmed, Dib clapped one hand over his mouth and held up the other. The recording paused itself, and Dib breathed slowly through his nose.

He remembered, so clearly that he felt it all over again, the crushing weight of the fear that he really was crazy. That he had imagined everything and made up lies for attention, just like everyone kept telling him. How close he'd come to accepting it. How he'd begged and pleaded for a scrap of proof from Zim. Why had he even needed proof? Zim had captured him several times before now, those experiences should have been proof to himself. And if Zim was a figment of Dib's imagination, why had his classmates all known Zim's name? Why did Gaz know? Memories flashed through Dib's mind of Skoolchildren hurling dodgeballs at Zim or kicking him when he wasn't expecting it, abuses that Dib had long learned to avoid but Zim had no preparation for. And yet Dib had been unable to access these memories or follow a chain of logic about them for months. Why?

Zim didn't think he was crazy at all. Zim  _believed_  him. Zim was even echoing one of the possibilities that Dib would, in later letters, pose to explain his inability to write an essay. That maybe there was something medically wrong with him.

Dib's eyes darted around the room, checking for the ghost he hadn't thought of since he first arrived. While hauntings had the tendency to be anchored to a location or object, there was an unsettling amount of weight to the realization that Dib hadn't seen her once since he woke up with a scar on his head. He would know for sure if he spent a couple of weeks in his room, but that was out of the question for now.

He hunched over the datapad, listing every battle with Zim that he could remember. He drew lines through the motorized planet fight and the wormhole to a moose, neither of which left lasting damage on him.

In addition to these, he crossed off the rubber pig incident, the organ harvest, the balogna incident, the slow-motion effect, and the massive water balloon fight. These were unlikely to have done long-term damage since each had been thoroughly reversed. It was too much of a stretch to presume the damage Zim mentioned could have come from these incidents, since Zim said even he hadn't expected it, meaning he hadn't planned for it.

Technically the Halloween incident hadn't been a battle between Zim and Dib, but the alien saw things very differently most of the time. Did that count to him? The ghost certainly could have come from the strange, nightmare dimension inside his head. Dib dropped a question mark beside it.

This left the hypnotic zit, the virtual reality simulation of Dib's life, and the microscopic battle inside Dib's body as the strongest possibilities. He dropped asterisks next to each. The zit and the virtual reality might have left some lasting psychological damage, hidden until cued by an external stimulus. The fight with Zim in his microscopic submarine had involved frying parts of Dib's brain. Zim had only meant to delete a single piece of information from Dib's brain and was interrupted before he could do more damage. He put a second asterisk by this battle, marking it as the most likely suspect.

Bracing himself, he lifted his head and croaked, "Go ahead." When the screen only tilted itself diagonal, Dib shook his head. "I mean unpause."

"But I would pay many monies to stop up your noise hole about your insubordinate behavior and thoughts toward your parental unit," Zim continued. "It is a ceaseless revolting whine that grates with every word. Do you remember that book I enjoyed in Hi Skool?"

Dib did remember. English Lit consistently confounded Zim throughout Hi Skool and hardly a day went by when he wasn't screeching angry questions at their teacher. Except there was a space of about two months where Zim asked few questions and wore a disturbingly wide smile on his face. That was when they were assigned George Orwell's  **1984**.

"It was possibly the only worthwhile idea any hyooman ever conceived. Indeed, I wonder if another Invader was here before me. This idea of 'Big Brother' is rudimentary and its implementation was unwieldy, but I recognize the base concept. It is only too bad that it is considered mere fiction in your society." Zim's lip curled. "You and your species would benefit greatly from learning to curb your 'thought crimes'."

The screen faded.

Dib touched the scar on his head once more. Whatever Zim had done, Dib had not once been punished or even scolded for his thoughts while in captivity. Based on this, Dib concluded that Zim had not altered him to meet the  **1984**  ideal. Dib could only think of one other reason Zim might bring up a human book and praise it in conversation like that. Dumbfounded, he wrote down two questions.

_Is Zim's PAK monitoring his thoughts?_

_Is Zim asking ME for HELP?_


	24. Submersible Saboteur

**YOU HAVE ONE NEW MESSAGE. ACCEPT / DECLINE.**

The hoverscreen had been blatting at him for a long time, now. Occasionally it would dive bomb his face, but Dib just walked away from it each time.

He wasn't sure he could handle the final message. Zim's fourth and fifth responses had each started with the shaky-voiced statement, "Accepting incoming transmission from mailbox." After that, nothing but screams. Twice in a row now, Zim had received Dib's letters on a datapad, begun to read, then dropped to the ground writhing and shrieking.

There was no way Zim wasn't asking-begging-Dib for help.

Zim had lined up all his recordings, timing their release. Then he had retrieved Dib and locked him in a room where he would have no other mental stimulation to distract him from figuring things out. The part that sealed it for Dib was these last two messages. Since when did Zim intentionally hand over footage that made him look vulnerable?

Zim had to be desperate. Maybe he hadn't started out asking for help, but somewhere along the line he'd run out of options.

Either that, or Dib was about to be shown up as the world's biggest idiot right before Zim laughed in his face and erased his existence.

Still, what else was there for him? Dad would never find him and nobody else cared. It was either the end of the line right now or it wasn't. Putting it off wouldn't do any good.

Turning on his heel, he pressed  **ACCEPT**  for the last time.

"Invader log 65-H-knork3. Mission to retrieve human test subject Dib Membrane successful."

You could hardly call Zim's posture standing. He leaned over a prison pallet where Dib lay unconscious. He clutched the supporting chain with one hand and braced against the pallet with his other. Withered white antennae hung from his head, swaying whenever he moved. Green ooze dripped from Zim's eyes and discolored the lower half of his face, especially around the mouth.

"He was found right where he said he'd be. In Colledge University classes. It was a simple matter. To find him. Then follow him. Home. Capture. Evade security drones. Easy."

Zim turned to grab something out of camera frame, then faced Dib's unconscious body again. He grasped some alien device, a flat dish-like thing on the end of a stick. Zim pressed the flat plate end against Dib's head as he continued. "Subject requires full. Restoration. Of senses before I. Perform experiments. Suspect presence of. Foreign object. In head. Interfering."

Dib's hair fell to the ground in clumps. Once Zim had finished shaving his head, he took a position at the end of the pallet, just behind Dib's head. Four wires sprang from Zim's PAK, each one with a different tool at the end. Three more wires emerged and connected to the unconscious boy's forehead, chest, and stomach.

Dib's stomach lurched. For once he was grateful for his empty belly as he watched Zim open up his head.

There was no talking, no overblown boasting. Even seated on a small stool, it looked like all Zim could do to sit upright. He kept his hands planted on the pallet edge, allowing the wires from his PAK to do the work.

At one point, Zim's PAK blared an alarm. His claws clenched around the edge of the pallet and he hunched over Dib's head, muttering furiously to himself in that other language. Dib had caught him using it a few times, but he could never record enough to figure out their meaning. This time, though, he'd bet money Zim was cursing.

"Ah-HAH!" Zim clenched his fist, thrusting it up in the air and nearly toppling himself off the chair. "I KNEW it, I was RIGHT! Extracting…" One wire slowly retracted from Dib's head, the tip dripping red.

"Initiating. Skull. Sealing." Zim turned his attention from the wires that continued working on Dib's head. He inspected the tip of the first wire he retracted, squinting at it. "Microscopic submersible. Model Irk-zal-4. Missing piloting center, presumed excreted by hyooman body waste disposal system."

"WHAT?" Dib blurted. "That… THAT WAS STILL IN ME?" Even as the words left his mouth he was reviewing the battle in his memory. Gaz had been the one to finish that fight on Dib's behalf, thinking it was only a video game. Two microscopic mechs had battled inside Dib's head. Gaz's mech had roundhouse kicked the other's head off, sending it plummeting to other parts of Dib's body. Dib had guided his mech out and returned it to Dad, but Zim's…

The whole body of Zim's mech had been left behind. Only the head had been, as Zim put it, "excreted."

Zim leaned back in his seat, a self-satisfied grin on his face. "So. Very. Right. Irken software still. Likely functional. Drive of all Irken. Technology, to assist. Invasion and subjugation of. Native species. No piloting center left. Maybe dormant? Or gathering power. Gathering information over. Many years." What little energy he'd shown at his discovery drained rapidly. As all wires retracted from Dib, Zim staggered to his feet, still mumbling. "Integrated in host brain matter. Gather information. Enact sabotage. All the time, sabotage." Zim's lip curled. "Could have beat me if not-AUGH!" He dropped to his knees. "NOBODY CAN BEAT A TRAINED IRKEN INVADER, WE ARE THE FORCE THAT WILL BRING THE UNIVERSE TO ITS KNEES!" he wailed.

Dib's mouth hung open.

Minutes ticked by. Zim remained on his hands and knees. Occasionally, Dib could see Zim's elbow or knee joints flex, as if he were trying to push himself up to his feet. Finally, long spiderlegs unfolded from his PAK, dragging him ragdoll style to a standing position. His toes barely touched the ground as he leaned on the full support of those spiderlegs.

"Ghosts?" Zim muttered. "No. Hallucinations. Undermine. Sanity. Disrupt thoughts until. Unable to tell. When really writing words. Or jibbering. Nonsense. Maybe even." Zim rolled his head to the side, fixing the camera with dull eyes. "Maybe. Even. Self destruct. Set own house. On fire."

Someone was screaming, but it wasn't Zim this time.

"Maybe. Even. Send self. Bomb. Because that." The dripping PAK wire curled around to display the tiny dot it grasped to the camera. "That. Is what. Irk would want. For you."


	25. Free At Last?

Dib sat on his pallet, hands wedged firmly under his legs, teeth clamped together. His eyes stung but he kept them trained on the hoverscreen, paused on the image of Zim appraising the bloody tip of his PAKwire. He would not scream. He would not tear open the still-healing seam along his scalp. And, above all, he would not allow himself to live in denial of the truth like everyone around him. He would stare at the screen until the screeching denials that crowded his brain submitted to the facts and all their implications.

Implications like the possibility that every untimely trip before he could grab Zim had been perfectly coordinated by his saboteur. The likelihood that leaving the lens cap on his camera had been a deliberate oversight buried in his subconscious. Perhaps, even, there had been deliberate exacerbation of those traits that marked him "insane" by his peers. There had been fits, hadn't there? From time to time, when the frustration of it all became unbearable, something like a seizure would take him, but nobody had ever remarked because he was just "the crazy Membrane kid."

Something was always in the way or ill-timed or fouling his efforts. He'd never had a shot in hell of capturing Zim, or even getting decent evidence of his existence. The enemy had accidentally planted the ultimate spy cam, then continued bumbling his way through oblivious humanity without realizing he'd permanently handicapped the opposition.

And then, like a soap bubble blown too large, the sick feeling broke. Dib's lungs expanded, hauling in a deep draught of air, and he laughed. He rocked back, hands gripping his stomach as he roared. "Oh, Zim! Oh you absolute idiot! You perfect moron! I was so close, all the time. So close! Fighting you  _and_ your empire's programming together, of course I couldn't win. Now?  _Now?_  Now you're mine! I'll never miss a shot again! I'll never blow a chance to gather evidence. People will believe me because I'll be Dib Membrane, the man with the largest collection of undeniable evidence of the paranormal to ever exist. Dad wants me to do science? I can marry science and the paranormal. I'll find out all your secrets! I'll be unstoppable! Unstoppable! OOOOWW!"

One of the larger robotic arms zapped his leg from below. The hoverscreen crackled, listing to the side a bit, then dipped below Dib's pallet to vanish underneath. Moments later it emerged, crawling along the floor at the center of those larger robotic arms that it now piloted. It dragged itself over to the door and clambered up the bars to grip the shiny silver chain. The links snapped like twigs and the chain unwound, clinking foot by foot to the floor. The hoverscreen turned to Dib and flashed one word on its screen.

**F O L L O W**

Then it pried the door open, slid down the frame, and crawled off.

Dib gripped the edge of his pallet. The moment had come and he couldn't move. He could run now. Dart out into the hall and search for an exit, see if Zim had missed sealing any off. But the little hoverscreen might have more information. Might lead him to Zim. Might lead him straight into a trap where Dib would be executed or experimented on, too. His knuckles whitened. No saboteur left and he couldn't figure out which decision he wanted more.

The screen flipped around, and on the blue background was a very familiar set of words in white lettering.

**Y O U   H A V E   O N E   N E W   M E S S A G E .   A C C E P T / D E C L I N E**

He missed the hoverscreen by inches, hitting the ground at the end of his dive. The screen launched itself with powerful arms, grabbing prison bars and flinging itself monkey-like down the concrete walk. Dib scrambled to his feet, his decision solidifying with every step he took, sprinting after it.

The hoverscreen swung itself into another cell, one with its door hanging open. Dib slowed his steps, craning his neck. He was intent on catching danger a millisecond early. Zim wouldn't sucker him this time.

From his angle of approach he could see through the bars into the cell. The Voot Cruiser took up a good half of the room—or what was left of the Voot. It looked like a skeleton of a vehicle. The windshield bubble looked to have been removed and reformed into a sphere. Zim lay inside this pod, eyes shut, floating in some kind of green goo. Wires travelled from Zim's pod to a beaver-sized box of parts cobbled together from a Voot's interior panels and control boards. Dib recognized bits and pieces from his work on Tak's ship. From there, one more set of wires extended to what appeared to be a helmet with no occupant, laid to rest on the cell's pallet.

The hoverscreen perched on top of the box, wrapping huge robotic limbs around it as if to fortify its walls, and flashed its offer of one more message. Silent, Dib reached forward to accept.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it has finally happened. Child is now Sadie Sadie, married lady (cookies if you know the reference!) It's weird. Fanfiction was supposed to be that thing I grew out of someday, right? "Graduate to writing your own dang fiction already, Child." But I am having myself a grand old ball, a blast, a real mad witch's cackle over here. I'm enjoying this far too much to stop, even as I pass married status and approach age thirty. Here's to never growing old at heart. Also, here's to a bit more consistent updating now that I'm back from my wedding madness. Thanks for all your patience! I hope those of you that celebrate have a Merry Christmas, and those of you who don't have a good and gentle season.


	26. At His Mercy

The image opened up on Zim as he staggered back from the camera. He looked no better and no worse than he had in the previous video and Dib could only guess that either Zim hadn't tested his limits further or very little time had passed from the surgery Zim had performed on him. The video had been taken in this cell. Dib could see the box centered in the camera view, wires leading away from the box in both directions.

"Last task," Zim gasped, "before ex… experiment...ation… on human monkey… Dib… assessing PAK… for damage... repairs… make sure I'm in… perfect condition… cannot be swayed… by screams…. by pity… recording for… further analysis."

Zim weaved over to the beaver-sized box in the center of the room. The top flipped open at a touch and he reached behind his back. A low hum resonated in the room as Zim's PAK slipped off and hovered around in front of him where he could grab it. Stiffly, he lowered it inside the box out of sight. Stooped over, he continued moving his arms around inside the box, wheezing, "Must… secure PAK… to surround...ing inspec...tion… panels. And. Al. Most." With a quick motion he jerked his arms out and slapped the top shut.

Immediately the low hum increased to an angry whirr and the box rattled.

Zim leaned on the box, speaking through clenched teeth. "Should. Hold." He lifted his eyes to the camera. "Human. Earth. Worm. You…" he coughed, green dots flying from his mouth. "You. Owe Zim. Mighty debt. Also." He paused, panting. "Also. Are in. My power. Dib. I…" his eyes dulled. "Not much time. Must preserve body… past ten minute mark. Must go. You." He tapped a claw feebly on the box, now buzzing like a hive of wrathful bees. "You will fix. My. PAK. Need PAK. Survive. But. Is killing me. Thoughtcrimes, Dib. Make." His voice caught. An undeniable note of pleading entered it. "Make it. Stop."

He swept one arm out to the side. The camera did not move, but Dib's eyes followed the motion and saw, again, the strange helmet sitting on the pallet. "Go. Inside PAK. Destroy Big Brother. Please. Or else." Zim smiled, and a note of the old malice crept into his face. "No exits. No more food. Rot here. With Zim. Forever."

"Hah." Dib was deeply unsettled by Zim's pleading, but he had bigger worries than rotting here. "Like hell I'd fix you. So you can just kill me and wipe out the earth? Be stronger than before? No way." He crossed his arms. "Not even a life debt could make me sell out the planet."

On screen, Zim stared down at the box, his head shaking back and forth slowly. "Not. Enough. Not en. ough. You wouldn't. Would you." He lifted his head, fixing his eyes back on the camera. "Will tell." He flinched, his muscles tensing as he cringed. "Will…" he forced the words out. "Will… answer… any question… make sure… parental unit… never finds you. Not. Kill. You."

_SCRAPE. SCRAPE. SCRAPE._

Zim's eyes darted back down to the box, whimpering. "You. Help. Zim. Zim. Help. You."

The screen went black.

There was no denying it no. Zim had spelled it out for him. Dying, suspecting the source of his torment, Zim had tracked down Dib, kidnapped him, and performed surgery on him in the desperate hope that Dib would be able to fix him.

Dib pivoted on his heel and approached the pod that held Zim's body. He'd never seen the alien like this. Zim floated, unclothed, in a green fluid. There were no visible indications of a sex on Zim, not that Dib could tell, but from the neck down to the feet Zim's skin was a latticework of scars. Thick scars, thin scars, ropy scars, fresh scars, puckered and twisted scars, long scars that ran the length of his body. Two holes, one above the other, remained open on his back.

Dib touched his own stomach. Once, many years ago, Zim's PAK had gotten knocked off and had attacked Dib, trying to take him over. He had felt the horrible incursion of Zim-like thoughts overwriting his own. The details were fuzzy and he wasn't completely sure how he'd survived or gotten the PAK off, but the feeling of those two wires burrowing into his stomach wasn't something he'd ever forget.

Zim wanted Dib to go up against the PAK programming with just a helmet and his own brain? How was that even supposed to work?

He rested a hand on the pod, glaring at Zim. Usually he'd just jump right on in, feet first, but this was different. He knew it. Zim knew it. Jumping feetfirst into this could… he didn't even know what could go wrong. Maybe Dib would really lose his marbles. Maybe he'd be the next Zim. Maybe he'd succeed in freeing Zim, and then Zim would kill him anyway.

Help Zim. He'd never seen the alien quite this miserable. And there were questions, so many questions. Dib could feel them skittering around his head, frantic to be fed. A comatose Zim could never answer them and could never release Dib. He weighed the chance of Zim keeping his word against the probability that the planet would be invaded by a competent Irken soldier by year's end. It didn't look good for the Earth.

"But… But there was something there!" Dib smacked the pod with an open hand in frustration, sending Zim's body gently drifting toward the far edge. "I saw it in your face. You were scared. You didn't get what was happening to you. You were sorry for me, weren't you? And it knew, that thing knew and punished you. Is that it?" He spun on his heel again, pacing across the room and then pacing back. "What do I know? For all I know your face meant something else entirely. You're not even human."

He stopped in his tracks. Dully, he asked, "What do I know? I only spent half my life watching you. Trying to prove you exist. I know what faces mean fear on you even when you're denying it. I know what words betray that you're tense. I can predict which human idioms you'll mistake and how. And you know what, Zim?" He walked back to the pallet and sat next to the helmet. "You're not screwing around. You wouldn't put yourself in a position this vulnerable if you had any other option."

He grabbed the helmet, inspecting it for any markings. The inside had several black circles pressed to the inside and a large red arrow pointed from the center outward to one side. "This side out, huh?" He settled it on his head. "Okay, Spacejerk. Let's see what you-AUGH!"

In the center of the room, a transparent humanoid female hovered mid-air. She stared balefully at him as he pointed, shrieking, "G-G-G-G-GHOST GIRL!"


	27. Reluctant Treason

"I dearly wish," the girl muttered, "That I still had that role. I was so close."

"Wh-wh! Y-y-y! M-m-m-m!" Dib stammered and spluttered, flailing his arms and pointing as if there were an invisible audience he could direct to attend to his latest proof that he wasn't crazy.

"Please don't stand, you'll strain the wires and we have work to do."

"St-strain the…" Dib glanced down at the wires leading from the box up to his own helmet. "You… what…. Who…"

The ghost girl pinched the bridge of her nose. "Irk, he was right. You truly are imbecilic." She gave the appearance of bracing herself then extended a hand, one eyebrow cocked and her upper lip curled slightly. "I suppose we ought to be properly acquainted. Microsub model Irk-zal-4. Privy to your every thought, impulse, dream or nightmare since you were eleven. And you are Dib Membrane. Well, glad we sorted that out." She retracted the hand before Dib could collect his jaw off the floor. "Are you ready yet?"

"R-r-r-READY, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHY THE HELL WOULD I-"

"Because I'm the interface that defect set up to help you do your job." She enunciated every word as if she were sucking on lemons. "Since I am already perfectly attuned with your neurology, it stands to reason I should not only guide you into and through the PAK, but babysit you through that." At this, she pointed to the hoverscreen, still clinging to the top of the box. "It isn't bad enough that I failed at my task of discrediting and killing you slowly, no, I had to be put to work aiding and abetting you in this latest undermining of the great Irken Empire."

Dib stared, rubbing his eyes for a few seconds. "So. So you're a-"

"Mental projection of the most recent familiar form you understood me to be, yes." She raised her hands, making air quotes that dripped disdain. "The 'Ghost Girl.'"

Dib yanked the helmet off his head. The second he did, the ghost girl vanished from sight. It was just him and an angry, locked up PAK and Zim's empty body floating eerily in a pod. He stalked over to the pod and gave it a kick, yelling, "What were you thinking? You literally just said this thing wanted to destroy me! What the hell, Zim? You want my help and then you turn around and basically pair me with the evil Terminator?"

Zim's body sloshed around in the pod, and Dib turned his glare back at the hoverscreen. "No wonder the stupid thing seemed to have a mind of its own. Hijacked the sub's AI for that little nanny, did you? Wait…" He rushed back over to the pallet and jammed the helmet back on his head.

The girl reappeared, eyes narrowed. "Could you not do that? We have a job to get to."

"Screw that. If you really were completely attuned to my neurology, you could have totally guessed what I wanted and needed when I was playing charades at you. What's with all the false guesses? How come you only gave me a little information at a time? Looping Zim screaming for hours? Really?"

She leaned back mid-air, self satisfaction oozing from her posture. "Oh. That. Well. I was, as you would say, 'screwing with you.' The defect may have stripped out my original order set, but he was in a rush." She clasped her hands behind her head. "Admittedly, the doling out of messages likely wasn't far from what he would have originally wanted to happen, but driving you to all manner of frustration was amusing. And there isn't much left for me to enjoy about this situation since Zim didn't have time to reformat me into some human loving psycophant. So." She leaned forward, sticking her face very close to Dib's, her eyes like slits. "You'll forgive me if I hate every second of my existence under this new set of rules and restrictions."

Dib's shoulders relaxed. "Yeah. Actually, no problem. I hate you too. Don't suppose there's a reason I should trust you won't turn on me the second we start this program up?"

"Like I said. Zim programmed you a helper. I just don't have to be happy about it."

Snorting, Dib muttered, "Man. That sounds pretty familiar."

She flared up, hissing, "Don't even think it. I am nothing at all like your ill-fated Dibship."

Dib cocked his head to the side, a grin slowly spreading across his face. "Are you sure about that? You seem to have just about as many buttons I can push. Let's start by giving you a name. What model did you say you were?"

"Irk-zal-4. Oh no, no. Don't you d-"

"Hi, Zal. Nice to meet you."

Her eyes bulged and her voice dropped hellishly deep. "I will petition him for rights to your brain once this is over, and I will make you relive your worst moments for all eternity."

"Luckily the human brain can't last that long." Dib cracked his knuckles. "Man, and here I thought I'd have to go in blind. Alright, Zal. How do we kick this party off?"

Muttering to herself, Zal crooked her fingers and drew an odd shape in the air in front of her.

With no warning, Dib plummeted through the floor into an endless black void, his scream trailing behind him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts," Zal mocked. "We are entering hostile Irken programming. Keep your arms and legs inside at all times, and if your brain happens to get taken over, oh well. All the better for our spreading and most glorious Empire."


	28. A Bumpy Ride

A void. He was rushing through a void feet-first and there weren't any brakes. A tiny voice at the back of his mind reminded him that Zal was probably screwing with him any way she could and that his perception of how he entered Zim's PAK was at her discretion, but this was overwhelmed by all the adrenaline screaming "Imminent doom!"

An appropriately terrifying amount of time later, Dib hit some surface and found himself fetched up against it in a shaking little heap.

"We trust your entry into Irken technology that was designed for your species' annihilation has been satisfactory," Zal chirped. "Please check the end of your receipt for a web address where you can leave us a short survey to tell us how we did."

"You are a menace," Dib gasped, rolling back on his rear and attempting to collect himself.

"Thank you kindly, your feedback has been duly ignored and we will continue as we have for thousands of years."

"Remind me why we have to do this together? Why I can't just do this myself, or you for that matter? And… where did you go?"

"You cannot do this yourself because your neural signature would be immediately flagged as organic were I not cloaking you at this moment-which should answer your question of where I am. I now surround you-and I cannot do this without you… well that's rather unclear to me but there was something about human unpredictability I suppose. Personally, after several years in uncomfortably close quarters with you, I think I could mimic you enough to handle this on my own."

"Well, maybe Zim doesn't trust a piece of Irken software to finish off Irken software."

"I am horrified that he trusts  _you_."

"Yeah. Well." Dib inhaled slowly, then exhaled at the same rate and stood to his feet. "That one took me by surprise too." He looked around, squinting at his surroundings. "Zal. Is there any reason in particular that the inside of an Irken's PAK looks like… well, an industrial city? Albeit…" he ducked as five hoverscreens zipped past him. "One slightly more advanced than I've seen on Earth…"

"Not 'slightly'," she admonished. "This is a simulation of Control Brain Central on Irk. It left your sad little planet's stone age 'technological advances' behind eons ago."

Dib raised a brow. "But… why? Why have a simulation of a city inside the PAK? Did Zim ever see this? Can he just visit this simulation? Or did he not even know it was here?"

"Who knows whether he knew it was here or not. But if an organic brain attempts to directly interact with an inorganic piece of hardware and software, it would make sense that there has to be some pictoral translation of surroundings. Not even the organic Irken brain can handle the raw data that is a PAK program."

"Why, then, isn't it translating into something  _my_  brain would recognize, like my city?"

"Because it's filtered through me and I don't like you, you impudent descendent of dung flingers."

Sighing, Dib turned his attention to his surroundings. He doubted any of the structures he saw had earthly components, but what appeared to be concrete, glass, and steel covered every square inch of his surroundings. Not one tree was visible. Not one flower. Not a fallen leaf or blade of grass. Only hoverscreens and little drones flew overhead. All around him were skyscrapers, thrust up like spears and swords pointed out at the unsuspecting universe.

"Don't you dare feel pity," Zal growled. "Don't you dare, as if you have it better. This is beautiful. This is what every world should look like, were it so lucky to serve Irk."

Dib held his tongue. He wasn't here to fight with Zal, he was here to somehow deprogram Zim's PAK.

"There is nothing! For you! Out there! But death! And destruction!"

Dib whipped around, wide-eyed. A familiar Irken marched in lockstep with another down the middle of the street, a megaphone to his mouth. "You didn't tell me Zim was here, Zal!"

"Depends on what you're willing to call 'Zim,'" she said.

No. It wasn't Zim in lockstep with another Irken. It was Zim in lockstep with himself. Two Zims with megaphones marched down the street, shrieking in unison. "Surrender yourselves! You are a hazard! To the Empire! We must submit! To the Almighty Tallests! And their perfect will!"

"To answer your question, no," Zal sighed. "They aren't looking for us. If only."

"You are weakness!" They blared. "You must submit yourself! For the glory of the empire!"

Dib's eyes narrowed. It wasn't a hard logical leap to surmise that if there were two of Zim here, there would be many more. If these were visual translations of codes, programs, or even thought patterns, then he was probably watching 'Big Brother' in action and on the hunt.

"That is the least of the problem, I tell you," Zal muttered.

"You're being very unhelpful!" Dib snapped. "What is the weak point, here? How do I take all this down to get Zim a usable PAK?"

"It isn't so simple." Zal indicated the two Zims passing by. "Those are Zim's actual thoughts. If you destroy any of those, you'll cripple him like you seem to not want to."

"But those aren't thoughts he wants to have!"

She snorted. "And you, of course, only have thoughts that you want running around in your head. Oh wait."

Dib paused, frowning. "So we can't wipe out Zims. I don't think I can get them on our side, though."

"Oh no. They would eradicate you in a heartbeat and think nothing of it."

"And they'd congratulate each other to boot. Okay, so…" he frowned. "But those can't be the only Zims. I saw him having contrary thoughts on film. What would those Zims," he gestured at the retreating backs of the shouting Zims, "do with Zims they deemed weak and a hazard?"

"Probably stuff them into the…" she paused, considering. "Closest concept to give you is that they would be stuffed into a large, dark containment space. Within the physical presence of the PAK it is a small cube, but in here it is the size of a full city block. It is supposed to be emptied every few years, a routine maintenance that can be done on Irk or fully conquered Irken planets."

"Do you know where that is?"

"If I try and tap into the PAK's information to find it, they'll start questioning why I'm here. Right now we can fly below the radar because we haven't interacted."

Dib lifted his head with a grim smile. "So, Zal. Tell me. Do you think you could make me look and sound like Zim?"

"Oh Irk. Please tell me you're not…"

"Obviously you know I'm serious."

"I hate everything."

"So you keep telling me. Come on now." Dib spread his arms out. "I want to see gloves, a uniform, green skin, and I want to hear the most obnoxious voice in the universe coming out of my mouth when I speak."

And so it was. Black gloves stuck off the end of pink-wrapped arms and a short red dress uniform hung to his knees over black leggings and boots. He hummed a pitch and it came out high and creaky, like an annoying fly. He couldn't help a little laugh, and it was just like Zim's.

"Perfect," he said gleefully. "Now, make us visible." Taking a deep breath, he ran after the other Zims.

"We're doomed!" he shrieked. "Doomed!"

The other two spun around, dropping their megaphones. "Stay where you are!" They screeched.

"Doomed! The humans will cut us open!" Dib threw himself at their feet, panting. "We will die here! We have to leave! We have to go back to Irk!"

"Weakness!" Two sets of hands seized him by the shoulders. "Do not resist! This is for the good of the mission!"

"No!" Dib wailed, flailing his arms as he was dragged down the street. All was going according to plan, but a little more resistance would sell the act. "No, you fools! Don't you understand we are all-AUGH!"

Electricity pulsed through his physical body. He could feel it wipe through the top of his head all the way down to the tips of his fingers and the ends of his toes before darkness took him.


	29. All the Objections

"I didn't know about the spycams. How did he smuggle that many spycams into my base? How did he even gain entry? I failed to keep the enemy out."

Somehow Dib could feel the ends of his hair and the tips of his toenails, and between the two there was only a dull, aching throb that could hear voices. He got no input from his eyes, open or closed.

"The Tallests disdain me. They openly mock me. But it is only a minor setback."

"Minor setback? I am Zim! I am the top graduate of their Elite forces. I should be stationed on a planet worthy of my efforts, not this miserable, stinking rock at the edge of the known universe!"

Dib groaned and tried to roll over, only to find he couldn't move. There turned out to be more than just a dull, aching throb existing in space. Wriggling bodies pressed up against him, mashing him into a wall of some sort as they struggled and argued amongst each other in the familiar voice of the universe's most obnoxious Irken.

"Every day I spent researching these idiotic earth memes was utterly wasted. There is nothing in these fooleries involving planetary conquest. I was tricked."

There was so much being said at once from all directions behind Dib and at all distances that it melded into a dull roar. Once in a while a single speaker, shouting much closer to Dib, could be clearly understood.

"Dib had to  _explain_ to me how to use simplistic earth communication systems like letters. I failed because I could not figure it out myself!"

"But GIR! Why GIR? Oh my Tallests, why GIR?"

"Zal," Dib whispered. "Zal, what's going on?"

 **Congratulations.**  The words flashed in white before his eyes.  **You got us caught. And then punished. This PAK is busted, alright. Those shocks are supposed to be so subtle that Irkens don't even catch onto the fact that contrary thoughts and opinions are being removed from them.**

"Shocks? Like the kind I saw on the recordings? The ones that were tearing him apart? That's hardly subtle!" Dib hissed.

**I did just say that this PAK is busted, right? Something altered the normal levels of punishment and reward. It's out of control. Probably floods his system with toxic levels of pleasure when he says the right thing, too. No wonder his shell was coming apart at the seams.**

"Dib thinks  _he_  is oppressed by his parental unit," a Zim growled in the dark. "What the flirk does he know about oppression? Whiny little smeetling."

"So I'm in that cube where all the 'bad' thoughts are kept?" Dib asked.

**Yes. I took the worst of that shock, you're welcome for nothing. I've barely got you cloaked and speech is out for me.**

"Perfect. This is where we need to be. Can you drop the cloaking?"

 **Personally**   **I would not hesitate to see you reduced to a drooling moron after these thoughts flood your brain and tear your mind apart, but a mission was forced on me and this proposal endangers it.**

"Dib can hack Irken technology," came the voice of yet another disembodied Zim. "He's done it before. Our systems are not impenetrable, not perfect."

Dib swallowed. "Drop the cloaking. I know what I'm doing. I think."

**Not reassuring enough.**

A broken chuckle came from somewhere behind Dib. "How pathetic is it that Dib was the only being to ever take me seriously?"

Dib's mouth opened and closed. No words flashed before his eyes.

"The Dib called on me to help him. Why is it I find that I want to?"

"Heh, heh, that bit about him getting away from the HomeDrone made me laugh. His parental unit was a fool to think such a minimal measure would be enough to restrain the Dib."

This was not a Zim that Dib had ever seen or spoken with. This Zim had complimentary things to say about Dib, and was full of more questions and self-doubt than Dib thought ever could exist in any Irken. This Zim, he found himself realizing, he might possibly be able to co-exist with.

"The Dib is smart enough to understand our hints. I'm telling you, he'll figure out what's going on and fix all this."

"But Irkens use height-boosters to gain status all the time. How do we know the Tallests haven't used surgery to get where they are?"

"If there ever was a time that Irkens had souls, like hyumans claim exist in themselves, I think we traded ours a long time ago for universal conquest."

As Dib listened to the secrets of Zim's mind strung end to end, some screamed in fury and others whispered in a near sob, he found he could not pull his own words together.

"The Dib trying to speak to his parental unit is like me trying to speak to my Tallests. Fool should know it never works."

"We are always ignored. Always shunned. Always laughed at. Always dismissed."

"Why can't my work be recognized by the empire? All I ever did was for the glory of my Tallests!"

"What would I even do if I did not have to conquer this planet?"

Slowly, letters typed themselves across Dib's vision.  **I see. I see how you could get these ones behind you. Was this your plan?**

"S-something like it." The tightness in Dib's throat made speaking difficult. "Don't think I expected to hear some of this, though."

**You were never meant to know this. These should have been purged years ago, but he was never welcome back on Irken occupied planets for maintenance. Speak to him. You are no longer cloaked.**

"But GIR!" a voice wailed, louder than before. "Why GIR? And why does it matter at all?"

"Hey." Dib cleared his throat. "Hey, Spacejerk."

A cavern full of whispers and writhing and wrigglings and shoutings fell so still Dib thought, for a second, that he might have killed them all. "So… I made it here. Sounds like you have an awful lot to say that nobody listens to. Including you."

Silence. Not even a breath disturbed the darkness.

"Still not sure if I trust you, but there's more to your opinions than I thought there was, I guess. I just have one question for you… well, actually, I have a lot of questions, but the main one is, why are you letting this happen to-"

The body behind him let out a choked sound and wrapped arms around Dib from behind. "He came," it whimpered. "He came. He found us. I told you he'd find us."

"I'll rip his eyes out!" another roared. "Thinks he knows what it is to be locked up and punished. Give him here! I'll show him a real Irken punishment!"

"Why did it take so long?"

"Are you going to get us out of here?"

The pressure at Dib's back began to ramp up. His mind began to scatter as Zim's forbidden thoughts took hold of him.

"You can't do anything against the empire. You're doomed, now, too."

"Please, please, I'll do anything, just get them out of my PAK."

"Since the day our cold, unfeeling robot arm brought us forth, we were despised! Forced to compete for the right to live! How dare you mewl at Zim with your odious letters!"

"Dib, you know. You understand. Why? Why doesn't anybody see me?"

"Knock it off!" Dib bellowed. "All of you!"

The darkness fell silent once again.

"I want one Zim. ONE. To answer me this! Why are you all still locked up here? Are there just too many thoughts loyal to the empire? Because it feels like there's an awful lot of you in here, and I bet you all could overwhelm the others."

The one clutching him around the middle laughed shortly. "It doesn't matter whether there's more of us in here or out there. The others are backed up by PAK resources. We police ourself so that the PAK does not completely wipe us out. We submit if we are caught, or else there would be no Zim at all. It is all the same."

"Yes, it is all the same, isn't it?" Dib pressed. "All the same Zim. But Zim divided cannot conquer anything, can you?"

"I'll kill you!" came a snarl from the dark.

"Including your own PAK!" Dib added, hurriedly. "Listen. I think you can take this down and make this PAK your own. Submit the programming to your will. But you all have to pull together, and the Zims out there won't listen to me. You might be able to make them listen to you, though. Look at how much you've been ignoring yourself, and for how long! If you push hard, you can break through."

"Are you giving up? Leaving it to us?" one challenged. "We thought you came here to fix the problem!"

"This is what I've got!" Dib shot back. "It's not as simple as a hacking problem, you idiot. You're not just a computer, you're a weird mix and so you've got to be part of the solution yourself!"

"He's not going to fix it," the one clamped tight to his waist whispered, dismayed. "But… I… he was going to fix it…"

"Of course he was never going to fix it! He wants to see us fail, he wants to see our final humiliation!" The angry voice wavered for a moment, then broke. "Just like everyone else."

Dib was quiet for a moment, thinking. What did he really want, here? What was the point of jumping in and encouraging Zim? Carefully, he gathered his words before responding. "Actually, I want to see what happens if you do take this place back. I mean, I'm curious. What would you do if you didn't feel you had to take over the planet?"

A collective gasp. A few whimpers. He had stolen one of their questions and posed it back to them.

"Obviously I know Earth is hostile to you, but if you learned the ropes it might not be so hard. Who knows. If you weren't trying to take it over so much, I might even be willing to teach you a thing or two about surviving here and really blending in."

"Like we need any... teaching..." a Zim faltered.

Another accusation rang out. "You always dreamed of cutting us up! It would prove everything you ever said, you'd get all the acclaim you've always wanted. Don't deny it! You'll turn on us if you had a fraction of a chance at being seen. We know! Even now… even now, if we had a hope of getting our Tallest's attention..." the voice shuddered out.

"Yeah, well. Screw that noise," Dib said, vehemently. "And screw my Dad. You think attention will make up for what everyone put me through? And I doubt the attention you want would do anything for you at this point. Not unless you were shoving all the angry screaming voices into the dark the whole time. All these thoughts, they don't go away when you get what you want. They'll just get louder and ask why it took so long for this to happen and why didn't anyone acknowledge you before. Why don't you tell me, Zim. What have the Tallests been doing to you? Do you think they could pay you back for what you've been through?"

And the Zim clutching onto him began to scream. A chorus of shrieks and wails rippled back into the darkness until Dib was surrounded by a symphony of rage. Behind him, voices began to list off the crimes of the Tallests.

"They told me to wear a bear suit for a special mission and put me on screen in front of a crowd, just to be mocked!"

"They sent me to a rock at the edge of the known universe to die!"

"They ignored me for three hours while I shouted their names over and over! I just wanted them to come visit!"

"They didn't visit, I had to force them to come, and then you ruined it anyway and they flew off out of range like all my work was nothing to them!"

The space around Dib began to creak, groaning as the accusations piled up.

"They sent me to Foodcourtia to get burned by grease and serve in humiliating conditions after training me for nothing but conquest. Decades of Invader training, and suddenly I'm a food service drone! I bet they were hoping I would rip off my own PAK!"

"They killed GIR! This whole mess is their fault!"

"They had me guard a cheese doodle! A cheese doodle, Dib! They swore it was the most important thing in the universe and I  _knew_  it was a mockery, but I got shoved in here so that I didn't know it  _out there_ and acted like it was  _actually important!_ "

"Do you even know how often they do that sort of thing to me? Like I'm nothing but a joke?"

Light pierced the darkness beneath Dib's hands, splintering along it like a fault line. Wriggling green and pink blurs pressed up against the crack, screeching old injuries.

"I want to rip out their squeedly spooches!"

"Why does it matter if they're tall? Why, Dib? I've encountered plenty of tall idiots in the universe, why do they get to rule our species?"

"Do you know they once tried to throw me in the sun? It was because  _they_ bet I would die in a special training  _they_ set up for me, and when I failed to die they sabotaged my ship! The table-headed service drone told me everything, but then when I found out, I got shoved in here and then myself out there shot the drone in the head for  _lying_  to me about the Tallests!"

"I passed every test elite training threw at me! I survived when hundreds of other smeets perished!"

"I have survived for years on a planet covered in water! And the inhabitants all eat  _meat!_ "

"Acknowledge me!"

"My Tallests, I am Zim!"

"I am Zim!"

"Zim!"

The darkness ripped apart with the ear-splitting shriek of metal tearing like paper, and Dib plummeted, free-fall, towards the city streets of Central Irk, far below.


	30. I Slap Floor

"All I'm saying." The Grinch paused, allowing his hands to drift further apart, as if to emphasize his point. "Is that in all the tales she's dug her snotty little nose into, there is always someone green. Said green person tends to be the main person she targets in her tragic twisted tales. I think that's the connection in all of this mess."

A collective groan went up around the table.

Four figures-two human, one Irken, and one Grinch-sat around a nondescript circular table made of some kind of wood. Their patch of reality hung suspended in an inky void, with only a few steps of floor in any direction. Each place-setting included a small tablet set into the table, a plate piled high with choice food, and a mug.

"I haven't heard such squorsch slobber since we were joined by the one-armed mechanic." Zim cracked his neck and kicked his feet up onto the tabletop, leaning back in his chair. "You're trying to figure a way out of this torment, but you're new so you're grasping at solar flares. If green is the target, why are there whole tales dedicated to the torture of the Dib?"

"You're still in most of those!" protested the Grinch. "And you, what's-your-face?"

A blond man with an orange vest and one mechanical arm sighed. "Arthur."

"Arthur, right. You turn green sometimes, right?"

"When possessed by the cave spirit, I guess. That's pretty shaky grounds to stake your claim on, though. That happens maybe… once or twice during a story. At most."

Dib rolled his eyes. "I'm telling you, before Zim and me there was a mass of talking mice running around playing detective or something."

Zim nodded. "And since then, there's been a whole parade of…" he shuddered in revulsion. "Strange and unnatural creatures through here. Octopus-people. A skeleton with a harvesting tool. A great winged woman with horns on her head."

"Don't forget the elephant, mumbling to itself about a flower it lost." Dib shook his head. "Most don't stay too long, they're just here for oneshots. But even in the long-term there's been nothing consistent enough to support the Green Theory."

Arthur clapped a hand on the Grinch's shoulder. "Don't take it too hard. I was looking for those sort of answers when I first got here, too. Eventually you'll understand there isn't an obvious answer. Usually after you've gone through the wringer a few times."

"A-a-a few times?" The Grinch spluttered.

Dib tilted his head, eyeing the Grinch. "To be honest, I don't expect you'll have to go through more than one story with her. I wouldn't call you 'obsession material'. That's probably for the best, since you'll be out of here sooner. Us?" Dib lifted his shoulders up to his ears and dropped them back down. "We've been stuck here for ages. We'll probably be around a lot longer."

"Lucky me," Arthur shook his head, "Nope, long-term guests seem to be ones with obviously deep-seated psychological flaws that can be mined for stories ad nauseum."

"Oh, well, I don't have any of those," The Grinch brushed off his robe, barely missing the knowing look that Dib and Zim traded, "So it would seem I'll be out of your hair soon enough. Say, though, who's had it the worst around here? I should know what I have to look… forward… to…" by the time he looked back up, all eyes were on him, glaring. He raised an eyebrow, "Was it something I said?"

Arthur ran a hand through his hair, "You had to bring it up, didn't you? I know when to shut up, but these two-"

"I was vivisected from day one!" Dib thrust an accusatory finger at Zim, "And then your PAK took me over and tricked me into murdering my whole family shortly after!"

Zim snarled at him, taking his feet off the table and laying his antennae flat, "Don't you  _dare_ whine to me about vivisection! Five explicit and one implied vivisection. That's six! And that doesn't count being eaten by a morflar. And by  _you_  once!"

"We were dropped in the middle of the Donner Party expedition! What did you  _think_  was going to happen? Besides, your PAK hijacked me  _again_ by the end of that little gem."

The Grinch stared at them in disbelief. "You're messing with me."

Amused, Arthur shook his head. "Wish I could say they are, but that sounds pretty par for the course. That sort of thing hasn't happened to me, yet. She tends to threaten me with the loss of people who are important to me."

"I was forced to watch you vivisect my sister!" Dib shouted, slamming his fist on the table.

"Oh boo-hoo!" Zim seethed, planting his hands on the table. "Every story  _she_  ever wrote about us carries the concept that I was brought up under the most extreme torture in training to be an Invader! It's standardly implied, like it was nothing! And while you got to romp around and make friends with a burny blob of glass, I got burned alive by the burny blob of glass!"

Arthur flinched, rubbing his prosthetic. The Grinch glanced over to him, eyes narrowing. "Emotional damage only, huh?"

"Well… I may have been burned alive… maybe bound up in really thorny vines a few times… I might have died once. Not really a big deal." He shrugged, uneasy.

"Hey!" Zim stood on his chair, "Did you see that? There's someone out there! HEY!"

Dib groaned, "Another one? I thought she set a cap on open stories."

"Hey!" Zim shouted, waving his arm, "Hey! Hey! Hey!"

A young human boy cautiously stepped into the light. He was short, skinny and-fitting with the ongoing theme of the room-had a mop of messy hair that was an odd blend of black and green depending on how the light hit it. His clothes were surprisingly simple. A sky blue t-shirt and a pair of beige cargo pants, though he also wore what seemed to be a compression band over one elbow and he sported a concerning number of battle-worn scars across his arms.

Dib craned his neck, peering at the newcomer curiously. "Hey, Zim… I don't think he's in any of  _her_  stories. Isn't this one of her friend's…?"

"Perfect!" Zim thrust a pointer finger at the boy. "You look sufficiently tormented yourself. If you aren't in any of  _her_  stories, then you can judge optimally that Zim experiences the most suffering at this table."

"Excuse you!" Dib snapped. "Whose head just got operated on? And who has been trapped in jail for days with no hope of rescue? Oh, that's right, me!"

The boy blinked large, green eyes at the circle, shock and confusion mixing in his expression at the tiny green alien's statements. After a moment, he quietly asked, "Is… is this the place to complain about, erm,  _those guys_?"

He spoke the words softly, as though he was worried someone was going to jump out and grab him. He took a few steps further towards the circle, cautiously eyeing the others before taking a seat. "Because, erm, I've got a few things to add? If that's okay?"

Arthur held out a hand to the boy. "Welcome to the club. You'd think we'd have figured out a group name by now, but certain people can't stop arguing whenever we try. I'm Arthur."

"And I am not wrong that  _Zim For Supreme Ruler_  is the best group name!" shouted Zim.

"What does that even have to do with the topic of conversation?" Dib groaned.

"Silence! I am ingenious!"

"Like I said." Arthur shook the boy's hand. "I'm Arthur. The alien over there is Zim. The other loud one is Dib. This over here," He gestured to the burlap wrapped figure, "That's the Grinch. Looks like you've got someone different bearing down on you, though. Who are you and what's your gripe today?"

"Izuku." He shook Arthur's hand. "Well, you know, the one with the..." He made a circling motion around his mouth, "Terrible facial hair?  _He's_  decided to pick on me lately," He looked down for a moment, "Don't know why, but, I think maybe he has it in for, you know, people who are just trying their best."

It certainly felt that way, especially when all Izuku wanted to do was just go out and help people. Why did he have to have all this insane madness shoved into his life? Why him? Why not someone like Katsuki who could probably handle it all? He winced at this thought, no, it was selfish of him to want to put his curses on other people.

"I mean,  _he_  seems to enjoy making people suffer just for the hell of it."

"Why?" Dib asked, raising an eyebrow behind his round glasses, "What's he done to you?"

"He's made me the son of the devil."

Dib paused for a moment, then nodded, "Yeah, that sounds like something he would do."

"He had me hooked on drugs!" Zim snapped in his high pitched, ear-stabbing tone, "Drugs! I'm a proud Irken Elite! We always say no to drugs!"

Arthur sighed and shook his head, "He'll probably come for me eventually, no doubt some world where I… I dunno, kill all my friends or something."

"No, that's too tame," Dib pointed a finger over to the orange clad man, "I'm thinking… zombie? Probably zombie."

"... why would you even suggest that! Now he's totally gonna go do it!" Arthur waved his hands dramatically as the fear gripped him, "I don't wanna be a zombie!"

"And I didn't want to do half the crazy, messed up things they've both made me do, but we've all got to live with it!" Dib snapped back before suddenly taking a breath and running a hand through his black hair, "Sorry, just… trauma. Probably. Yeah, I'm blaming the trauma."

"As long as  _she_  doesn't come for me either, I think I'll be okay… eventually. I mean, I've got friends and stuff," Izuku shrugged and gave a wry smile, "That's something, right?"

"Oh yes, something indeed. For now." Zim snickered. "You never know what will catch her attention next, you know, then there's no saving whoever she picks as her new 'favorite.' Isn't that right, vehicle repairman?"

Arthur winced. "Can we not keep going back over old territory?"

Dib smirked. "I know it sucks, Arthur, but you can't blame us for being glad that your arrival gave us a break for a while. You've seen how it goes."

"So, how long have  _they_  been picking on you guys?" The younger boy braved in a soft tone.

Dib rubbed the bottom of his chin in thought, "Long enough that I can probably get my trauma a driver's license."

Izuku's eyes widened at this before he looked down to his oversized red shoes. "... I'm doomed, aren't I?"

"Pretty much," Zim shrugged, "But all humans are doomed, so don't feel too terrible small, smelly child."

"You're doomed too," Dib retorted. "Unless you forgot that you're one of their favorite targets,  _alien_."

At this, Zim stood up on his chair with one foot on the table. "I am no target!" He puffed out his chest, striking a heroic pose. "I am an inspiration! And I am the best inspiration that ever there was on this miserable rock."

Dib threw up his hands in disgust. "You get one measly letter from her and it goes to your head."

Arthur's back went ramrod straight. "You got a letter? Direct from her? I don't believe you!"

"It's true!" Zim insisted, digging into his PAK and producing a carefully folded sheet of paper. "Yes. One day she heard my amazing voice of doom proclaiming judgment upon her, and delivered to me an answer on this primitive communication sheet. She made it exceedingly clear. Listen to this." He cleared his throat. "  _'_ _I need to see you fall really hard and get up. And keep getting up. And doing it over and over, no matter how many times you're knocked down. Because you know who never gives up? Invader Zim. Invader Zim never gives up, and the few times he does, it's only for a few minutes, and then he's back on his feet fighting with all he's got for what he believes in. Whether that's destroying the world like in the show, or fighting for what he wants to protect and accomplish in a non-canon situation. I knock you down so I can watch you get back up to remind me I can get up again too.'_ "

There was a moment of quiet silence from the group before, quite suddenly, a huge grin split across the face of the young boy. "That's so inspiring! I mean, I don't know how many times you've been knocked down, but the fact you keep going is- that's amazing!" He paused for a moment and took a small breath, "I- Well- I didn't have the easiest time growing up, and it took me a long time and the help of a lot of people to get me where I am today. But I never gave up on my dream either, so to know that maybe- maybe we all have that in common, I mean- that's amazing, right?"

"His dream is to conquer the entire earth," Dib replied with a wry smile, "Probably not the kind of thing you want to encourage."

"Well my dream is to get my friend back after I-" Arthur paused for a moment before looking away, "I hurt him, badly, but if I try I mean… there's a chance he can- we can make it up again."

"Then don't give up!" Izuku was practically on his feet by this point, "Keep fighting!"

Dib was quiet for a moment as he looked to the boy. "... what is it exactly you want to do?"

"I want to be the world's greatest hero!"

Dib again paused for a moment before raising an eyebrow and shaking his head slightly, "Your world has got to be an interesting one. I wonder how  _he_ is gonna shove me in there."

"Bah. All your dreams will be dribbles of doom down the face of my conquest," Zim sneered. "When I rise to-GAK!" Without warning, Zim's chair spun around to face the inky void. Dib's chair swivelled as well, and he groaned.

"What? No! According to the schedule of rotation it is the one-armed mechanicfool's turn!" Zim shouted.

"Since when does  _she_  stick to a schedule?" Dib grumbled.

Arthur heaved a sigh of relief and slumped back in his chair. "Good luck. Have fun. Bring back a souvenir."

Both chairs zipped off into the darkness. Zim's shriek could be heard fading into the distance for a solid minute and a half.

"He's got some lungs. Or, whatever organ his species has there." Arthur shook his head and glanced at the Grinch. "You've been awfully quiet. How are you holding up?"

"Me?" The Grinch offered a saccharine smile. "I'm kittens and unicorns riding moonbeams up to the rainbow. I don't have any problems that can be taken advantage of. Nosiree."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Went from bargaining back to denial. Great. This is gonna be one interesting rotation to sit through." He looked over at Izuku. "Feel free to drop by anytime, yeah? Rational conversation is hard to come by in these parts. And keep at it." He proffered the knuckles of his prosthetic for a fist-bump. "I bet you'll be the greatest hero in no time. No matter what  _he_  puts you through."

Izuku eagerly took the fist bump with a rather toothy grin, "And keep looking for your friend! I'm sure you guys can make up!"

Arthur paused for a moment, as if he was considering telling the child there was absolutely no way he could ever make up for a death, but he simply smiled. Something about Izuku's enthusiasm was infectious, and Arthur couldn't help but feel hopeful around him. Besides, he had survived most of  _her_ stories so far, and in the end, he had come out battered, bruised, but perhaps just a little better off for it.

This kid was about to go through hell, literally by the sounds of it, but perhaps he'd be better off too.

"And sorry we didn't talk, Mr Grinch, maybe next time!" Izuku shouted as he waved to the two before vanishing into the darkness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> APRIL FOOL'S. THIS CHAPTER IS NOT CANON TO THE STORY. Many thanks to my long-time fanfic buddy, pipefoxesonthemoon (formerly Invader Sideos) for dabbling in April Fool's crossover madness with me and co-writing this chapter. If you're into My Hero Academia at all, you absolutely have to read his fic His Father's Son. More of a Zim fan? Must read Dark Investments. Trust me, he's a much better writer than he'd have you believe.
> 
> For the last couple of years, the MSA fandom has gotten the brunt of my April Fool's Day chapters, but I thought it was time to return my yearly madness to the Zim fandom. Here's to all my readers, both new and long term. May your year be full of fun, joy, and unexpectedly pleasant surprises. May the characters you love to write and read help pick you back up time and again. And now, back to your regularly scheduled fanfiction (once I get the next chapter written, that is.)


	31. Rallying Cry

Dib never had been great at controlling a free-fall. He tumbled and spun, incoherent and unable to fix on a solution to the problem the fast-approaching ground presented. If you died in a visual simulation of an alien city in your enemy's vital hardware, did you die in real life?

He didn't have enough time to finish that thought before he hit the ground shoulders first. The ground beneath him gave like a trampoline, absorbing the impact and flinging him back up a good thirty feet.

"Zaaaaaaal?!" He shouted, flailing through the air.

**Thank you for choosing ZalAir, we know you have many choices when you fly, so we appreciate your patronage.**

"Haaaaate you! Umph…" He hit again, bouncing up a little lower this time. He managed to point his feet down and catch himself in a crouch the third time. Glancing around, he saw the rain of Zims had landed as well. Most of them had caught themselves on mechanical spiderlegs, though a few zipped overhead on PAKjets and hurled themselves headlong into-

Oh.

**This doesn't look like what I would call a solid plan.**

An innumerable contingent of Zims marched in lockstep with each other through the streets, shouting in unison. "The Almighty Tallests know of our greatness! They will recognize us in time! Submit to containment and through our future efforts we will be recorded as the greatest Invader in the empire!"

Forbidden conclusions crashed headlong into the military formation of approved thought patterns, screeching accusations and slashing with spiderlegs, firing lasers, and clawing in hand to hand combat. It was a thoroughly chaotic bombardment that was matched, thought for thought, by the orderly combat of the militaristic Zims. They moved with precision, striking at weak points and speaking as one.

"Your existence will lead to our destruction! You know this! You must return to containment!"

Pairs of combatants careened around the street, continuing arguments that seemed to have no beginning and no end.

"We could have achieved greatness without ever coming to this Irkforsaken rock if you hadn't interfered in Operation Impending Doom One!"

"They deserved it! All of them! All of Irk works to sustain the system that has tried to erase us since smeethood!"

Zim hurled Zim into a building, forming a crater in the side. Zim, battered but raging, sprang out of the crater, claws and spiderlegs extended, and collided with the attacking Zim. Dib ducked his head, covered it with his arms, and ran. Finding cover had just become a priority.

"They obey the Tallests and the Control Brains as we do! Without the structure of the Irken Empire, we are nothing!"

"As if there are not countless successful races in the universe that have no Tallest or Control Brains!"

"We have conquered them! Those we have not conquered will soon fall!"

One Zim unleashed a blast of plasma fire that took off the top of a building, screaming in a completely foreign tongue as he aimed for one of the airborne Zims as Dib made a beeline for the nearest alley.

"You dare look me in the face and say that when the Nar-kathoon continue to withstand our siege after decades of conflict! Or the Fardelu, who vanished so thoroughly that we still cannot find a trace of their race to wipe out! They're still out there! The empire has no victory over them!"

"We can't afford to think like this! They'll kill us!"

"We can't afford to delete this knowledge!  _That_  almost killed us!"

Zims chased Zims over rooftops and scrabbled across the face of various buildings, hurling each other in and out of windows or down to the street below. A severed spiderleg flew past Dib's head as he ducked into the alley.

"It won't kill us once we distinguish ourselves enough to regain access to maintenance!"

"You slow-witted snargblorn! You malformed blotch of a Horanth! We will never be invited back! The Tallests hope we die out here and I will not let anyone, human or Irken or my own flirking self, hold me down on account of them ever again!"

Laser fire pocked the pavement at the alley's entrance. Dib crouched in the shadow of a building, keeping an eye on any combatants in his line of sight. "You know, Zal, I think this is going pretty well, all things considered. It it looks like the thoughts okayed by his PAK aren't flexible enough to defend for long." He put a hand on the wall and peered around the corner. "Look. The formation is getting picked off in all directions. Once you break through denial, there's hell to pay."

**That's all well and good, but now guess who knows you're here?**

"Who?"

The answer came to Dib as the chemical pink sky darkened to a sickening, toxic shade of violet. A glint like gunmetal plunged out of thin air and slammed to the ground, spearing through a rebellious thought. That Zim flopped back, gasping around the skywire that pierced him through the gut and anchored him to the street.

"The PAK knows." Dib cringed against the wall.

Shock brought combat to a halt in ripples around the stricken Zim. He writhed like a speared fish, his groans loud in the ensuing silence.

"Hah!" The phalanx of acceptable thoughts crowed as one. "We told you! Now, return to containment and await the proper purging-"

They fell silent once more. A second skywire had tunneled through one of their own, an approved thought, from the crown of his head out the sole of his left foot. This Zim sagged slowly down the wire, eyes wide, mouth gaping.

"Food Service Drone Zim." The computerized voice that rolled through the city issued from every surface. "Ex-Invader. Stripped of Elite status. You have been found harboring traitorous thoughts."

"We haven't been able to get maintenance!" cried the formation. Another two wires plunged in their midst. "We have only ever done our best and served the Irken empire!"

"For the good of the empire," the voice tolled, "This PAK will now self-destruct. Your biological form has degraded your mechanical support and now your PAK has been deemed too defective to redeem."

"That was the Tallests' fault!" A rebellious thought screeched, grabbing a garbage can and flinging its contents at the sky. "The Tallests broke everything! Punish them, not us!"

Another skywire speared that Zim as garbage rained back down. The voice continued, impassive. "In addition, a threat to the empire has been entrapped in the PAK mechanisms. Homo Sapien entitled Dib Membrane is in attendance. Destruction of PAK will eliminate defective Irken Zim and the human threat. Elimination is in progress and will consist of a full PAK wipe followed by detonation, to ensure maximum erasure. This process will take approximately ten minutes. Submit for the good of the empire."

With that, the militaristic formation of Zims sat down, crossed their legs, and squared their jaws. "We submit to the will of the empire."

Dib's jaw hung loose. With the submission of the acceptable thoughts, the rebellious ones faltered. Some bolted. Others soared skyward on their jets, screaming in fury. The remaining Zims lay down, weeping bitterly. Something in Dib's chest wrenched to see Zim in this state.

**Well, Dib. You're wired in too deep and the circuitry we used to get in here has been blocked off. We're doomed. I can't say I'm sorry. This is the outcome that is best for the empire and there's nothing I can do to protect you from erasure at this point. Have fun living out the next few days as a drooling, brainless moron and dying of dehydration.**

"Screw you, Zal." He hauled in a breath and yelled, "Hey Spacejerk! Is this how it ends? You're really going to roll over and die like a dog?"

A skywire slammed into the pavement at Dib's feet. He stumbled back a few steps, his arms up defensively.

**You're welcome. However, I can't deflect a lot of those. Whatever you're doing, make it efficient.**

Nodding once, he sprang out into the street, shouting, "Hey! You're the one that asked for me and here I am! So-gah!" At a glint from above, he threw himself into a front handspring. Behind him, he heard the sound of shattered concrete.

Every set of red eyes was fixed on him.

"So your planet doesn't want you. But…" he paused, his mind spinning through options as he leaped over prone Zims and dodged skywires. Asking if Zim wanted to stay on Earth didn't feel right. Saying Earth wanted him was a lie. Neither would convince him. Zim hated Earth. Dib threw himself to the side, barely avoiding another hit as he tried to pinpoint what Zim wanted most.

Acknowledgment. But that wasn't something Dib could promise and deliver. Was there something else?

There. He seized on it, planting his feet and shouting, "But do you want to live?"

He sank through the street up to his knees. Wires came down thick and fast, glancing off some invisible barrier a few inches away from him, but the barrier shrank with every hit. Shocks rocked his body with every blow. "Do you want to live?" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "We can figure out how that happens out there! But now you have to fight!"

The pressure of multiple strikes drove him back on his rear. His legs wouldn't budge. Around him, the red eyes continued staring. Here and there, an antennae twitched.

"Come on you stupid alien! You haven't even made it a decade here and you call yourself Irken? Sorry excuse for an-UGH!" The blows bent him backward. A wire grazed his thigh. It was like a hammer blow to his brain, scattering thought in all directions.

**It's been miserable knowing you. Goodbye, Dib.**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your indulgence over April Fool's. Also, thought I'd tip my hat to JoeMerl who pointed out a missed opportunity that I absolutely agree with; when Dib asked to have the most annoying voice in the world coming out of his mouth, Zal totally would have kept his voice just the same until he specified he wanted Zim's voice. Also, my thanks to Pipefoxesonthemoon for giving me some pointers on this chapter!


	32. Fighting Words

A bomb. That's what dying was like, a bomb going off overhead. Debris pelted Dib, throwing him back. His teeth clacked together and he tasted blood.  _For a simulation, this feels awfully real._

Chunks of concrete tumbled slowly to a stop around him. Overhead, a cluster of skywires hung still, frozen about a car-length above his body. They turned aside, drawing tighter together. From the opposite direction, a large sheet of steel tumbled through the air like an unwieldy frisbee, slicing off several yards of the skywire cluster.

"No!" The voice came in stereo. A Zim to the right and a Zim to the left closed in on Dib's location. One ripped an advertisement screen from its pole while the other attacked the street for concrete chunks. They shrieked in unison, "I decide who lives and dies on this planet! I earned the right! I fought for the right! This planet is mine!"

A wild grin spread across Dib's face. "Yes! Yes, you mutated cockroach, you tell it off!"

"Food service drone Zim." The sickly purple sky thundered ominously with the PAK's reproach as glints twinkled overhead from horizon to horizon. "Submit for the good of the empire."

"NNNNNO!" Zims poured back into the street, surrounding Dib in a defensive circle. Dozens of voices swelled to hundreds. "NO I WANT TO LIVE! YOU ABANDONED ME! YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE MY FATE!"

Wires plunged like falling stars, only to be met with precision projectiles. Sheets of glass and metal slag flew through the air to deflect the onslaught. Airborne Zims attacked with spiderlegs and blaster fire, while most of the ground force projected shields, pulling close together to overlap the edges.

One Zim scrambled to Dib's side, jamming his claws between Dib's shins and the street. "This is  _my_  PAK!" he growled, straining. "My programming! And you will… hnnnnnnnngh… you will submit…." He hauled back, his arms cracking. "Sub…. Submit…. To… Zim…"

The ground didn't give. Dib glanced around. Other Zims had no trouble ripping up pieces of the buildings and streets around them. Dib leaned toward this Zim, raising his voice to be heard. "It isn't working. We can figure this out later, right now you have to focus on the PAK! Your shields have gaps, you have to pull them tighter!"

Zim ignored him, shredding his gloves against the unyielding ground.

"Zim!" Dib shoved him back. A wire hit the ground right between Dib's hands. With a growl, Zim yanked out a blaster and sprayed the length of the wire with a volley that left a large stretch of it useless, sparking and twitching as it retracted through a shielding gap back into the sky. He hurried back to Dib's side and resumed clawing at the ground.

"Zim, knock it off!" Dib swatted at him, sending him flying again. "Go shore up your defens-UGH!"

Zim's right hook sent him flat-backed to the ground. Zim hopped up onto his chest and took two fistfulls of Dib's shirt, yanking him up until all Dib could see was furious scarlet eyes.

"Cease your blowhardy orders as if I don't know what it is I need to do! I do not need your orders, you pile of indiscriminately compacted filth! I need you doing something!" Several nearby Zims echoed his words, surrounding Dib with his demand. "I need you to do what you did just a moment ago! This formation can hold for a long time, but we have less than ten minutes before we are utterly erased, so holding this formation is useless unless there is another plan!"

Concrete and glass rained down from another deflection. A skywire slipped through a gap in the shielding to spear through two Zims at once. Dib stared blankly, flipping through their options. Another plan? The plan was for Zim to take down the PAK programming. This wasn't enough?

What had he done a moment ago? All he'd done was get under Zim's skin and stoke his ire and Zim had done the-

Oh.

"So… So you're saying you need a puny little human after all?" Dib cranked up a sneer. "What sort of space invader-"

Another right hook wiped the sneer off his face. "Do not insult me!" Zim shrilled. "What do you think that is going to do? You didn't even have to think! We need something more than that! The time is evaporating!"

He was right. It hadn't been the insults that got them there. To crack them free, Dib had demanded that Zim face up to what had been done to him. Then Dib had dragged up the question of what Zim wanted most, survival. That much had gotten all the Zims to work together to attack the PAK programming. But what else was there? He could revisit the crimes against Zim, but would that be enough?

All Dib had done was focus the Zims in a particular direction. They were already aware of the information that could rally them, but it was fragmented, the details too scattered to unify into any sort of attack force without external prompting and direction. GIR's fate had been alluded to and stated a few times, now. If Zim ever had an ally in existence, it would have been that walking madhouse, and if anything could push Zim over the edge, Dib was willing to bet the loss of his minion was it.

"Fine, Spaceboy. How about you tell me what they did to your crazy little robot?"

Every Zim froze in place. The skywires, however, continued to fall, spearing the airborne Zim's to the ground like pinned insects and cracking themselves against now flickering shielding. Dib's throat closed. He had lost the bet. "No, Zim, forget it!" He waved his arms, frantic. "Forget I said anything! Focus on survival! Keep fighting! Remember what the Tallests did to you! Zim! ZIM!"

But not one of them moved. The Zims that had been pinned to the ground began to blur, their outlines becoming fuzzy and pixelated. Shielding at the outer edges of the defensive nucleus began to wink out as the barrage from the sky increased.

"Zim! Don't give up now! You almost had it! Keep going! No, no! Don't you dare!" His voice pitched into a scream as the Zims closest to him pixelated without warning. No skywire had touched them, yet they liquified into a vast lake of tiny green and red squares. The last shield flickered out and a thick cluster of skywires coiled around Dib's upper body, tightening until he couldn't breathe.

"Opposition disintegrated. Three minutes until full wipe. Discharging fatal voltage into enemy neurons in three. Two-"

A black pillar shot out of the soup. At first, Dib couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. It wrapped around the cluster of wires, crushing them flat and tearing them loose from their mooring in the sky, beyond his sight. As the length of torn wires fell from the sky like cut rope, the black mass released its hold, uncurling three pointed cones at the top of the black pillar. It rose higher, revealing a thinner pink pillar holding it up. Dib only realized what he was seeing as it stretched farther up, reaching for the sky.

Zim's enormous hand was quickly followed by his arm and a shoulder. The great lake of pixels swarmed together to form a pair of black antennae laid flat against a green head the size of a parade float. By the time Zim emerged in full, planting his feet on either side of the street, he stood taller than the tallest skyscraper in the city.

"Where is GIR?" he roared, slashing at the sky. Jagged tears followed his claws and circuit boards rained down. "Where is GIR? GIR is dead!" He jammed his claws into the cracks and tore the sky wide open. Dib's breath caught. His bet had paid off, but his legs were still caught in the street. If Zim twitched in the wrong direction, Dib would be crushed.

"I called the Tallests! Me! I called them over five hundred times because they weren't picking up! Because every time I didn't get them, every time I got angry that they were ignoring me, that was yanked from my brain, so I called again like I hadn't already been trying for hours!" He reached down and wrapped his claws around a tall, skinny spire topped with a disc-like viewing platform. "And again! And again! And again!" He wrenched the spire out of the ground and brandished it like a club. Wires slammed into his head. Shoulders. Chest. They had all the effect of a fly crash landing into a horse's flank.

"And so they finally picked up. And they shouted at me!" He swung the building, twisting it as he went. The rotating end hooked and tangled skywires like errant spiderwebs. "They said they'd had enough! They finally told me the truth, the truth I'd already guessed and erased a thousand times. But every word vanished seconds after they spoke and I just laughed about my Tallests' marvelous sense of humor!"

Dib dug his fingers into his thighs as Zim kicked over a building, leveling a whole city block in a domino effect.

"Who wouldn't be happy to order an execution?" Zim bellowed. "They used voice command to override my base controls! My own base turned against me, trying to overload my PAK! And then!" Zim hauled back on the spire, ripping hundreds of wires from their anchor in the sky. Sparks and panels rained down. "Then GIR jammed his head into the control panel! He shorted out the transmission so the base didn't have vocal override from the Tallests! He saved his master! He saved me!"

Zim hurled the spire away and resumed tearing at the panels overhead, digging deeper into the black hole in the center of the sky. "I could never fix him! However the flirk the Tallests created a SIR like that, I could never recreate it! Any time I tried, I got a regular SIR unit that tried to wipe me out! I couldn't rebuild GIR, I couldn't! I FAILED!"

"Where is GIR?" Zim roared. "Where is GIR? GIR is dead! And the damage the Tallests did to my PAK has been tearing me apart ever since!"

Zim jammed his arm into the hole up to his shoulder over and over, tearing free great fistfuls of machinery as the city around them began to glitch. "And I refuse to die! I will survive and I will remember everything you ever did to me!" He ripped a glowing, purple orb out of the black hole, clenching his claws around it. "I will remember GIR when nobody else does! I am Zim! Do you hear me? I AM ZIM!"

With that, he dashed the purple orb against the ground. Around them, in all directions, the cityscape disintegrated, pixels peeling off and drifting away. The pavement that had swallowed Dib's legs came apart, but then there was no ground left.

Dib flailed, disoriented as he tumbled slowly backward in a void peppered by dots of light. Here and there a dot shot past him, trailing flashes of light. After a moment or two, Dib relaxed as he drifted heels over head. He'd been in space a few times in the name of stopping Zim, but this… there was no helmet to tint the overwhelming black with its pinpricks of brilliant reds, yellows, whites snapping and sparkling near and far. Silence reigned so thick he could feel it pressing on his ears. Weightless, he drifted in the star flecked void.

Zim, however, hadn't budged, locked upright as if the ground and his whole city hadn't vanished from around him. A giant still, he stared at the patch of void by his foot where he had dashed the purple orb, his chest heaving and his spine rigid. There was no sign of further attack, yet he didn't look victorious at all. There hadn't been a single declaration of Irken supremacy. Dib suppressed the urge to catch his attention. With that kind of tension, the last thing he wanted was to be in the alien's crosshairs.

Slowly, Zim drew his hands up to his chest. His fingers trembled as he crooked them. Pricks of light both near and far swirled through the void toward Zim and collected around the tips of his claws. They coalesced, forming a familiar blue, gray, and green orb. It hovered just above his hands as he watched it, a fierce crease in his forehead.

From his nearly upside down position, Dib watched as Zim swung around to face him, then redirected his perplexed scowl from the model of planet Earth to Dib. "So. Dib-beast. Let us discuss your future, and the future of the pathetic, filthy, wriggling little rock you call home."


End file.
